Eli Manning
Eli Manning was also the #1 overall pick in the draft, picked in 2004 by San Diego and immediately traded to the Giants. He became the starter midway through his rookie season, and has started every game since. He is the active leader in consecutive starts, with 167, which is #3 all-time, behind only Brett Favre and his brother Peyton.
The biggest reason Eli is this high on the all-time list is that he is a 2-time Super Bowl Champion. The first came in 2008, when they faced the undefeated New England Patriots, the only team to finish 16-0 in a regular season, and he outplayed Tom Brady, leading the Giants on the championship-winning drive over the last two minutes to earn his first Super Bowl MVP trophy.
His second Super win came 4 years later, when the Giants eked into the playoffs with a 9-7 record, but Manning went on a tear in the playoffs, throwing for 923 yards, 8 touchdowns, and only 1 pick in the first three playoff games, two of which came on the road. They again faced New England in the Super Bowl, and though he only threw one touchdown, it was enough to pull off another upset and take home another Super Bowl MVP trophy.
That season Manning also became the only player in history to throw for over 4900 yards in a season and win the Super Bowl, a pretty impressive accomplishment. Other than that year, he has never been a great regular season quarterback, but he has rarely been bad. He has struggled in the playoffs aside from those two great seasons, losing all 3 other games he has played in.
Although he has always lived in the shadow of his older brother, Eli has carved out his own place in history. He is a 2-time champion, 2-time Super Bowl MVP, a long-term iron man, and has put up some big numbers. And while he has won one fewer Super Bowl than Troy Aikman, who sits behind him on this list, Manning was much better in the playoffs than Aikman, and put up much better regular season numbers than the Cowboy, eclipsing 20 TD's 9 times to Aikman's one.
No comments:
Post a Comment