Here is a really good link which breaks down stats on what “Pressure Reveals.”
There are many takeaways from this piece. But I will go after just a few of them.
1) Eli has been playing football for 7 years now. His ranking amongst these stats is not complimentary.
2) Defend Eli all you want. We recognize he is the franchise. We recognize that he won us a title. We recognize that he gets paid to be a squeaky clean marketing face of the franchise. But with all of that said, he gets paid way too much money and (more importantly) crowds out too much of the cap to generate these pedestrian numbers.
3) Restating the obvious here on this blog for the umpteenth time, the NFL in 2011 is a game of pressure. Either you are pressuring on defense or you are not. Either you are managing pressure on offense or you are not.
4) A Tale of Two Cities. Look at the TD to INT ratio when pressured. As well as Eli does in generating TDs when pressured (think Plaxico Burress TD to win the Super Bowl in 2007), he throws INTs when pressured just as easily (think Samuels INT in 2008 playoff game in Q1, throwing off the back foot again and again). Consider that he only trails Brett Favre in that category, and the old man is “finally” retiring. Essentially Eli is the single worst offender in the entire league here. Start making better decisions. Start sucking it up and taking a few extra hits in the pocket for not throwing off the back foot. Take a few more sacks. Throw the ball away. The OL may be aging, but up until now they have been doing a very good job of protecting Eli, so you have to expect that the veteran QB must do a better job.
Eli is our QB. He can EASILY win us another title. Or two. But he must improve. Last year was a setback. What are YOU doing, Tom Coughlin, to help him? Are you keeping that QBs coach who is not a QBs coach? Are you rebuilding your OL? Are you going to sit back and let your OC essentially abandon the outlet flare/checkdown? I was listening on Bloomberg radio the other day to a guy (Tim Harford) who wrote a book called Adapt. The premise of the book was simple. Failure PRECEDES success. Failure is good because we learn, we adapt and we get better. And if we are not listening to the problems and not making the adjustments, we underachieve and fall behind. Isn’t that what this blog does- point out problems with what is going on so that we can get success, i.e. another title?!! One thing is certain- we are not going to win another title with Eli Manning if he does not change that ‘INT% w pressure.’
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