The end of Eli Manningās stint as starting quarterback for the New York Giants
appears to be at hand. The team announced Tuesday that it was moving on from its longtime fixture under center, naming rookie Daniel Jones as starter going forward. With that, one of the greatest ā and weirdest ā runs that any iconic franchise leader ever had is coming to an end.
As
weāve detailed before, the youngest Manning brother has been a very average quarterback over the course of his NFL career. In fact,
according to Pro-Football-Reference.comās advanced passing index, he is one of the most average QBs ever, checking in with a lifetime
adjusted net yards per attempt (ANY/A) index of 101 (where 100 is dead-average for the era). Manningās durability has managed to keep him in the lineup longer than most other passers ā more on that later ā but on a rate basis, there hasnāt been much special about Manningās career passing efficiency numbers.
The way Eli got to average, however, was anything but. Among qualified QBs since the merger, Manning
is the only one to grade out as average or better by ANY/A while simultaneously rating below average in completion percentage, yards per attempt
and interception percentage. He pulled off that feat by being better than average at throwing for touchdowns ā and heās had
plenty of memorable TD strikes over the years ā while ranking as one of the best in history at avoiding sacks (something else that
shows up in his signature moments). Unlike his brother Peyton, who
became an all-time legend by excelling in basically the same categories as other great QBs did, Eli did it his own way,
as always.
And then there are the epic highs and ignoble lows of Manningās tenure in New York. Although his yearly efficiency marks have ā somewhat surprisingly ā
not bounced around too much more than those of his peers, Manning has compounded his regular-season performances with playoff numbers that have been all over the place. When he was leading the Giants to a pair of Super Bowl victories after the 2007 and 2011 seasons, Manning went a perfect (by definition) 8-0 with a passer rating (100.1) nearly 7 points higher than he ever had in any single regular season of his career. In all of his other postseason appearances combined, he went 0-4 with a rating (61.8) about 8 points worse than any regular season heād had after his rookie campaign.
Eliās playoff runs are either amazing or terrible
Postseason statistics for Eli Manning in 2007 and 2011 (when he led the Giants to Super Bowl wins) versus all other seasons
| SEASONS | STARTS | W | L | ATT. | COMP | YDS | TD | INT | ANY/A | GWD | 4QC |
|---|
| 2007 and 2011 | 8 | 8 | 0 | 282 | 63.1% | 2073 | 15 | 2 | 7.2 | 5 | 4 |
| All others | 4 | 0 | 4 | 118 | 54.2 | 742 | 3 | 7 | 3.6 | 0 | 0 |
GWD = Game-winning drives
4QC = Fourth-quarter comebacks
SOURCE: PRO-FOOTBALL-REFERENCE.COM
For such an average quarterback, Manning became a much more extreme version of himself in the playoffs ā which worked wonders twice and failed badly on four other occasions. Now, you might expect most Super Bowl-winning QBs to have such a split; after all, the team is also much more likely to win when its starting QB plays better. But even relative to
other multi-time Super Bowl winners, Manning stands out. None of them were worse by quarterback rating in their non-Super Bowl winning playoff runs, and only Troy Aikman had a bigger split in QB ratings between years when he won the Super Bowl and years when he didnāt.
Few QBs can match Eliās Jekyll-and-Hyde playoff career
Largest differences in postseason passer rating between playoffs with a title and without, among QBs with at least two Super Bowl wins as a starter
| YEARS W/ SB WINS | ALL OTHER YEARS | | | | |
|---|
| QUARTERBACK | SB WINS | ATT. | QB RATING | ATT. | QB RATING | DIFF |
|---|
| Troy Aikman | 3 | 251 | 112.6 | 251 | 64.0 | +48.6 |
| Eli Manning | 2 | 282 | 100.1 | 118 | 61.8 | +38.3 |
| Joe Montana | 4 | 369 | 110.2 | 365 | 80.3 | +30.0 |
| Bob Griese | 2 | 47 | 89.3 | 161 | 62.2 | +27.1 |
| Jim Plunkett | 2 | 175 | 91.0 | 97 | 65.5 | +25.5 |
| Terry Bradshaw | 4 | 267 | 93.0 | 189 | 70.1 | +22.9 |
| Roger Staubach | 2 | 112 | 93.0 | 298 | 73.2 | +19.8 |
| Ben Roethlisberger | 2 | 182 | 96.8 | 494 | 82.7 | +14.0 |
| John Elway | 2 | 182 | 84.8 | 469 | 77.7 | +7.2 |
| Tom Brady | 6 | 706 | 92.3 | 883 | 89.1 | +3.2 |
| Peyton Manning | 2 | 245 | 72.3 | 782 | 92.1 | -19.7 |
Excluding two-time Super Bowl winner Bart Starr because all of his other playoff games came in the pre-Super Bowl era.
SOURCE: PRO-FOOTBALL-REFERENCE.COM
Thereās also Manningās penchant for staying in the lineup week in and week out. Manning is
tied for 23rd in NFL history in games started (at any position) and had the
second-longest consecutive QB starts streak ever going until 2017, when former N.Y. coach Ben McAdoo
bungled literally everything about the Giantsā season. Manning is ā once again ā so different from his peers on the quarterback durability list.
For all his success, Eli is exceptionally average
Career adjusted yards per attempt index scores* for quarterbacks with the most wins in NFL history
| RK | QUARTERBACK | YEARS ACTIVE | WINS | LOSSES | TIES | AY/A INDEX |
|---|
| 1 | Tom Brady | 2000-2019 | 209 | 60 | 0 | 116 |
| 2 | Peyton Manning | 1998-2015 | 186 | 79 | 0 | 116 |
| 3 | Brett Favre | 1991-2010 | 186 | 112 | 0 | 106 |
| 4 | Drew Brees | 2001-2019 | 156 | 109 | 0 | 112 |
| 5 | John Elway | 1983-1998 | 148 | 82 | 1 | 106 |
| 6 | Dan Marino | 1983-1999 | 147 | 93 | 0 | 112 |
| 7 | Ben Roethlisberger | 2004-2019 | 144 | 71 | 1 | 112 |
| 8 | Fran Tarkenton | 1961-1978 | 124 | 109 | 6 | 110 |
| 9 | Philip Rivers | 2004-2019 | 119 | 91 | 0 | 112 |
| 10 | Johnny Unitas | 1956-1973 | 118 | 63 | 4 | 111 |
| 11 | Joe Montana | 1979-1994 | 117 | 47 | 0 | 118 |
| 12 | Eli Manning | 2004-2019 | 116 | 116 | 0 | 98 |
| 13 | Terry Bradshaw | 1970-1983 | 107 | 51 | 0 | 107 |
| 14 | Matt Ryan | 2008-2019 | 103 | 73 | 0 | 109 |
| 15 | Warren Moon | 1984-2000 | 102 | 101 | 0 | 107 |
* Scaled where 100 is the league average and every 15 points in either direction represents one standard deviation of performance.
SOURCE: PRO-FOOTBALL-REFERENCE.COM, WIKIPEDIA
Heās
12th in all-time QB wins, just ahead of four-time Super Bowl winner Terry Bradshaw, and right behind four-time winner Joe Montana. Among the top 10 in wins, every QB
had a career passing index1 of at least 106; all but two (Brett Favre and John Elway) have an index of at least 110. Bradshaw and Montana also crack 106. But then thereās Eli, at 98, the winningest truly average QB in pro football history. (Or the most average winning QB ever, depending on how you look at it.) Manning might stand out as mediocre among that group of legends ā but you still have to give him credit for being in the group in the first place.
Add it all up, and Eli ā the super-average QB, the mega-durable starter, the multi-time champion ā has had one of the most interesting career arcs of any quarterback ever, if not any athlete, period. I went looking for other players in the NBA or MLB
2 who ranked among the top 50 in all-time career value (Manning
was 36th in lifetime
Approximate Value going into 2019) who also were basically average on a rate basis and won multiple championships:
- Among the Top 50 in NBA Win Shares, Elvin Hayes was closest to average on a per-minute basis, and he also led the 1978 champion Washington Bullets in WS, though that was the only title he won.
- In baseball, Pete Rose is probably the most average hitter to crack the Top 50 in Baseball-Reference.comās wins above replacement, and he won three World Series (including being named MVP in 1975). Rose, however, had a career OPS+ of 118, so he was better at hitting than Manning has been at efficient passing.
- Among pitchers, Tommy John was the most average in the WAR Top 50, but he never won a title. Going down the list, the closest Eli analogue might be Don Drysdale, who won three World Series with the Dodgers from 1959 to 1965. Like Rose, though, Drysdale might have been too good: His career ERA+ was 121, which was also a fair amount better relative to average than Manning has been at QB.
The difficulty in finding exact comparables for Manning from other sports underscores how singular his career has been in its ups, downs and, in the end, its average-ness. I shouldnāt talk about Eliās career in the past tense, of course. Heās 38 years old, but this is an era when top QBs
play well into their forties. There even remains some chance that Jones falters (or is injured) and Manning is reinstalled as starter by seasonās end ā though once teams hand the keys to a young starter, they
donāt tend to reverse course on that decision.
Ironically, after years of Manning being worse than the perception of him, his numbers last season werenāt as terrible as they might have seemed. His ANY/A index of 101 matched his career average exactly. But this year, that number has dropped to 93. Though he is still
23rd in our starting QB rankings, ahead of such QBs as Derek Carr and Andy Dalton, his
62.3 quarterback rating in Sundayās loss to Buffalo was apparently too much for New York coach Pat Shurmur to bear.
Once beloved by fans at the Meadowlands, Manning has largely seen Giant backers
turn on him, or at least
pity him, even if theyāll always appreciate the pair of Super Bowls he helped bring to the franchise. Such is the nature of the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately NFL. But while it lasted, there was no denying that Manningās run with the Giants was one of the strangest, most impressive (and simultaneously unimpressive) careers weāve seen in sports.
