I like Eli Manning. He’s a good guy. When I look at him he reminds me of a hairy, square headed Elmer Fudd. In a good way. People can make fun of Elmer all they want but he was persistent and a hard worker. However, I still don’t know why he pronounced his r’s like w’s. I’m getting off topic. The point is, Eli Manning has done nothing wrong for me to dislike him (I’m talking personally, because he played well in a game I don’t remember that made me angry because of I forget). Unfortunately, Eli is the most annoying football player in the league. There are players I hate more than Eli, players that are actually jerks in real life. There are players that I respect less because they hang around in bars late at night wearing devil shirts and then do other things. I saw Eli on Letterman the other day, and thought ‘there’s a guy that I would go bowling with and trust to pet sit my fish’. He looked human and delivered some clever remarks that Dave laughed at incessantly (one of my top ten dreams). All that said, he’s one of the most overrated football players in the league.
I wrote about this in my previous post, during one of the seven stages of Niner depression. Various media personalities were saying after that game that Eli Manning is not only the best Manning quarterback, but with another title cements his Hall Of Fame resume. As one might imagine, this speculation is being rehashed again after Eli won his 2nd Super Bowl ring and even more people are jumping on the Eli bandwagon. As I said before, this is utterly ridiculous. Now I’ve heard of a prisoner of the moment. This is being a hostage of the moment, trapped on a desert island by pirates who think you stole their treasure. If you want to know the reasons why, read below. If you’re too lazy, then just know this: Eli Manning has had two season with a qb rating over 90, and none over 100. Peyton Manning has had ten and 3 over 100. I would argue Peyton’s seasons from 2003-2009 were better than any Eli has put together. The ‘number of championships’ card is unfair also. In 2007, Eli’s defense carried them to the superbowl, that was not Eli’s team. This year to a lesser extent, the defense carried the way and allowed Eli to have a chance to win the game. Eli and his offense scored 19 points against the worst statistical pass defense in the NFL. Peyton Manning has never had a defense as good as what Eli’s had during his playoff runs, nor has he ever had the luck or backup, (i.e. Darren Sproles torching the Colts defense in 2009 or Mike Vanderjagt shanking his AFC championship game winning field goal in 2005).
If you’re a 49er fan, I think the Giants have to be the most hated team in the NFL. If there are just a couple different bounces in the NFC championship game, and Kyle Williams runs into the parking lot, the Giants are eliminated. Backtracking even further, if Tony Romo doesn’t overthrow a wide open Miles Austin during a late December meeting with the Giants, Big Blue doesn’t even make the playoffs and finishes the season 8-8. There is not one person that can convince me that if the 49ers were in the Super Bowl they wouldn’t have won. Neither team was all that impressive, and it was that type of slow paced game the Patriots were employing that the 49ers feast on.
All this said, there are no championships in major pro sports won without a little or a lot of luck. The thing that really bothers me, is the swagger the Giants played with and the over confidence their fans have. Congratulations, your team won and to their credit, they didn’t make any of the mental errors the other teams in the tournament made. But at some point one would think the Giants fans would realize how fortunate their team is. What happened to the law of averages? I don’t live in New York, but all the reports indicate New York fans weren’t asking the “if they would win” question, but rather the “by how much they would win” question. Antrel Rolle and Chris Canty didn’t know how many times the two could gurantee they would win the game, so they settled on 53456 times each. The Patriots were just lingering in the background, not really saying much, silently waiting to pounce on game day. Then before you knew it, Wes Welker and Tom Brady had less chemistry than Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian. And sudo-Elmer Fudd is going to Disney World. What.
Not related: the Mariners pitchers and catchers reported to spring training today. Screw football.
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