We've Got Eli Manning's Back
Cold, Hard Football Facts for August 23, 2011

By Kerry J. Byrne
Cold, Hard Football Facts Eli-Ologist 

It was open season on New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning this week after he dared compare himself to 2010 unanimous MVP and three-time Super Bowl champ Tom Brady
 
"I consider myself in that class and Tom Brady is a great quarterback,” Manning said during an interview on the Michael Kay show on ESPN Radio New York.
 
The reaction outside Greater Secaucus was swift and clichéd: Manning is simply not in the same class as Brady.
 
The evidence is damning and overwhelming: Brady surpasses Manning in every single measure of quarterbacking. Manning’s proclivity for picks is perhaps the greatest difference between the two: Eli threw 25 INTs in 2010 alone. Brady has thrown 25 picks since 2007.
 
But the Cold, Hard Football Facts always stand up to bullies in the pigskin playground. No need to pile on the overburdened bandwagon of clichés and conventional wisdom. In fact, we raced to Manning’s defense Friday in, of all places, Boston, during a spot on sports radio station WEEI.
 
Now, we agree Manning will never match up to Brady statistically or otherwise. But even if Manning retired today, he should go down as a singular figure in the annals of American sports.
 
He was a principal player in not one but two of the seminal moments in NFL history – a pair of jaw-dropping events that took place in the space of a single February evening and that quite likely will never be match or surpassed for as long as they play pro football.
 
The fact that these two events came at the expense of Tom Brady and the Patriots means that Manning never has to hang his head in shame when talk turns to how the two stack up.
 
Here are the two events from that single February evening for which Manning and the Giants should always be remembered.
 

The Greatest Upset Ever

New York’s win over New England in Super Bowl XLII was and will probably always remain the single greatest upset pro football has ever produced, at least in championship play.

Super Bowl XLII was the greatest statistical mismatch in Super Bowl history. In fact, it was the greatest statistical mismatch in any NFL championship game since the 13-0 Bears faced the 8-5 Giants way back in 1934. (The Giants, by the way, engineered a shocking upset in that game, too, the second ever NFL title tilt.)
 
Consider the statistical full weight and breadth of the statistical mismatch in Super Bowl XLII:

• The Patriots boasted the best record in NFL history (16-0)
• The Giants were 10-6, tied for the worst record of any Super Bowl champion (1988 49ers, 2010 Packers).
• The Patriots boasted the best passer rating of any Super Bowl combatant (116.0), the second best mark of all time.
• The Giants fielded the worst Defensive Passer Rating of any champion in NFL history (83.4)
• The Patriots boasted the greatest scoring differential in NFL history (+315)
• The Giants fielded the lowest scoring differential of any champion in NFL history (+22)
• The Patriots scored 589 points, the most by any team in history
• The Giants surrendered 351 points, the second most by any Super Bowl champion
• The Patriots were 6 games better than Giants in regular season – the biggest differential in any championship game in NFL history.

• The Giants ranked 14th in scoring offense. Only three champions since 1940 ranked lower.
• The Giants ranked 17th in scoring defense. Only two champions since 1940 ranked lower
• The Giants ranked 13th in scoring differential, worst of any champion since 1940.
• The Giants ranked 25th in offensive passer rating, worst of any champion since 1940.
• The Giants ranked 17th in Defensive Passer Rating. Only one champion since 1940 ranked lower.
• The Giants ranked 24th in Passer Rating Differential, worst of any champion since 1940.

The Greatest Drive Ever

It’s one thing to be an architect of the Greatest Upset Ever. But to slay the beast with the Greatest Drive Ever is what makes Eli a seminal figure in pro football history.

There are certainly a number of contenders for Greatest Drive Ever: Bobby Layne and the Lions upending the dynastic Browns in the 1953 NFL title game; Johnny Unitas at the end of regulation to tie the Giants in the 1958 NFL championship game; Bart Starr’s frosty TD drive and scoring run to beat Dallas in the 1967 title tilt, the Ice Bowl; Joe Montana shredding the Bengals in Super Bowl XXIII; Ben Roethlisberger leading the Steelers past the Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII. (We chronicled the greatest drives in Super Bowl history here a couple years ago.)
 
But Eli stands alone among all these on the list: he’s the only quarterback in NFL history to execute a championship winning drive in the final two minutes when anything less than a touchdown meant defeat.
 
Layne threw his game-winning TD pass with 2:08 left to play. Unitas settled for a field goal before Alan Ameche scored his touchdown in overtime. Starr, Montana and Roethlisberger each trailed by 3 points and could have settled for field goals.

Only Manning faced the pressure of knowing that a touchdown meant victory and anything less meant defeat. (We discussed this phenomenon after the game a few years ago).
 
Patriots fans still embittered by the loss insist that Manning got lucky: Asante Samuel dropped what should have been a game-ending interception. And David Tyree magically clutched an oblate spheroid against his helmet with one hand, in perhaps the most miraculous reception in the history of the game.
 
But results are all that count in football – and the result was a drive that literally rewrote the NFL record books in the space of frenetic two minutes best represented by Manning’s Houdini-like escape from the clutches of the New England defense before connecting with Tyree for that incredible game-saving 32-yard reception.
 
Manning completed 5 of 9 passes for 77 yards, while scrambling for another five, covering 83 yards after taking over with just 2:39 to play.
 
The fact that he did it with such a marginal club and defeated what may have been the greatest NFL team since World War II adds another lay of history to the event. Johnny Unitas and the 1958 Colts, for example, were the dominant team in football that year, with the league’s No. 1 scoring offense and No. 2 scoring defense. They also topped the NFL that year in Offensive Passer Rating, Defensive Passer Rating and Passer Rating Differential. The 1958 Colts should have beat the Giants that year. 
 
Manning’s Giants did not just beat the Patriots to win the Super Bowl, they handed New England its only defeat of the season with just 34 seconds to spare. The Patriots would have been remembered as the Greatest Team of All Time. Instead, thanks to Manning and the Giants, they're remembered for the biggest hairball the league has ever seen.

No quarterback ever faced the same combination of pressure, dominance of the opponent and the weight of history that Manning did in Super Bowl XLII, and did it with such a rag-tag team of statistical lightweights like the 2007 Giants.
 
It was the Greatest Upset Ever, executed courtesy of the Greatest Drive Ever. It’s doubtful either will ever be matched, let alone topped.
 
And for that reason alone, Manning never has to apologize to anybody when talk turns to quarterbacking.