In my last post, I noted that Kevin Mawae will be returning to New York to face his former team, the Jets. (The game will actually be played at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey.) It will also be a homecoming of sorts for Kerry Collins, who quarterbacked the Giants from 1999-2003.
Much has been made of the swirling gusts of wind at the Meadowlands so I thought it would be interesting to run a check on Collins’ stats in Giants Stadium, where the Titans will play today.
Collins played in 36 home games for the G-men, starting 34 times, and had a 17-17 record. The passing stats aren’t great but they’re not terrible either so to try to put them into context I compared them to Eli Manning’s home stats.
I’ve broken Collins’ New York stats down by year and then compared his five-year total to Eli’s career stats at home.
As you can see, Collins has a better completion percentage, yards per attempt average and passer rating. Eli has thrown for more touchdowns and interceptions in less attempts.
This isn’t meant to be a Collins vs Eli comparison. Nor was this meant to be an in-depth look at the stats, simply a perfunctory one.
If you believe that Eli is a good quarterback and want to use his stats as a benchmark, which is what I’ve attempted, it should give you an idea how Collins has done playing in the same environment.
What all this indicates to me is that if the wind is indeed a factor in the Meadowlands, as many quarterbacks have said, then Collins has done a decent job throwing the ball in that stadium. We do know Collins still has a relatively strong arm and can throw a tight spiral, which you need in windy conditions.
As Titans fans we’ve seen him perform well in strong winds, most notably the 30+ m.p.h. winds in Cincinnati last year. Collins was 14/21 for 128/1 and a 98.9 rating. What I’m not sure of is if that was just wind or if it was similar to the gusts that swirl around like the ones in the Meadowlands.
The weather forecast for East Rutherford, NJ calls for a 100% chance of rain Sunday morning, then tapering off to 63% by 3:00.
If the forecast holds true, we may not see a lot of passing so this may be somewhat moot. But when Collins does pass the ball, I won’t be too worried.
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