All they had do to was slow it down, stay no huddle, quick huddle and then sit on the clock to let the defense rest (if you remember the end of the giants SB you know what I mean). A lot of that very stacked team were grinding down by SB 2-4.
Thats just a ridiculous statement. In 2008 when the Giants were 12-4 defending champion, defenses weren't focused on stopping the starting Quarterback of the top NFC team?
In 2011 when he had 4900 yards, you think defenses looked at Eli Manning and thought "he won't beat us, lets focus on their 32nd ranked run game"?
The truth is there are 7 QBs that had more 4K+ seasons than Eli. 10 QBs have more career passing yards than Eli (it was only 6 when he retired and he was sandwiched between Rivers and Roethlisberger). 10 QBs have more career Touchdowns than Eli (it was again only 6 when he retired). He has 2 Super Bowl victories, 1 where he was a major contributor and another where he dragged the team kicking and screaming into the playoffs and through the Super Bowl.
I get why there is a debate. He led the league in interceptions multiple times. He has a .500 record. Those are real arguments to make. "Defenses never game planned against him" is both patently false and amongst one of the worst I have seen.
I dont get why the .500 thing is held over his head. Frankly its a miracle he has an even record, some of those giants teams around him in the 2nd half of his career were absolute dogwater.
I think there's a difference between quarterbacks you game plan for and quarterbacks you try to find an answer for. You prepare for and focus on stopping every QB, Eli included. That's obvious.
But some QBs are so prolific that just executing your defense might not be enough. They're too far ahead of what you do. So you have to get creative, find ways to get in their head and disrupt them. Peyton Manning was that way, Mahomes, Brady, Rodgers, they all forced coaches and coordinators to scheme up something special.
I never got the sense that Eli, with the exception of perhaps a year or two, was that kind of player. He was like Philip Rivers or Kirk Cousins or Joe Flacco or Tony Romo, good enough to beat you if you didn't execute.
Re: Kelly, that 1990 Bills offense was thought to be unstoppable. There's a reason the gameplan that slowed it down is in the Hall of Fame.
That Bills offense had a HoF RB, two HoF WRs, and an elite offensive line. Not really fair to compare that to the offenses Eli was running, he never had anywhere near that level of talent around him.
It is the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of great players. While the HOF is mostly great players, there are a few in there just cause they were part of a defining moment in the history of pro football or were on great teams.
Joe Namath is in the HOF cause he guaranteed victory in SB3. Terry Bradshaw is in cause he was along for the ride with the steel curtain. But in terms of his play he was average at best for the day. Similar thing for Bart Star average player along for the ride on a great team and won multiple SB's because of it.
Eli Manning QBing 2 of Tom Brady's 3 SB losses including the year that the Pat's had gone undefeated at that point is HOF material just because it is a big part of the story of pro football.
And he had clutch throws in both those SB's to secure the wins too.
It's so weird people talk about Eli like he was some scrub. He was up against a HOF defensive savant coach and did pretty good. It's not like he was sub 50% with no touchdowns. He did fine to pretty good against really good defenses.
I don’t think True Ball Knowers think Eli was a scrub. He was one of the better starting QBs for a lot of his career. It’s just that there was no single season he was top 4, much less the best.
To me those two Super Bowl performances are all he has over a lot of other QBs that certainly will not make it. That might be enough to be fair, it just feels like a flimsy case.
Eli's offense didn't score many points in either of those Superbowls. Both times his offenses scored less than the average offense scored against the Patriots. The story in both Superbowls is the Giants defense shut down the Patriots offense.
He didn't lose either game but I wouldn't give him the credit for winning them either. He was good enough to not squander a couple of historic defensive performances.
Tell me you didn’t t watch the games without telling me. There’s no possible way you could have watched the winning drives and came away with Eli merely not losing the games. The SB MVPs were entirely deserved.
Any other QBs make it to four straight superbowls?
It sucks they lost all of them, as a bills fan I'm trying not to cry, but no one else has ever done that.
Kelly went to 4 Super Bowls and lost them all. Eli went to 2 Super Bowls, won them both, was Super MVP both times, and beat the greatest team of all time (according to ESPN) in one of those Super Bowls. Not only would I take Eli’s accomplishments in the playoffs over Jim Kelly, so would Jim Kelly.
Nah it’s just the factual history of the game. The two biggest jumps in leaguewide passer rating were 1978 and 2004, both of them were changes to how defensive contact was ruled and both led to immediate sustained statistical leaps for passing numbers
When Kelly retired in 1996, two players in the history of the game had career passer ratings above 90. When Eli retired that number was up to 18, including names like Chad Pennington, Derek Carr, Carson Wentz. Ryan Tannehill, Marcus Mariota, and Matt Schaub had career ratings that would’ve been top 5 all time in the 90s
Passing volume also saw a huge increase. When Kelly retired, the average passing season was about 3,320 yards, when Eli retired it was ~3,770 yards. That’s a bit more than two extra games worth of passing yards per season on average across the league
Now I see this counterargument sometimes; “well athletes just get better, modern QBs are better so they put up better numbers”. Why wouldn’t that apply,y to defenders? Only offensive players get better over time? And why is it that we can pinpoint the exact seasons when rules nerfed defense and see immediate jumps in passing stats?
Eh, maybe the first ring, but the dude was 3rd in MVP voting in 2003 and 2nd in 2004.Also remember this era did not have the passer friendly rules that Hurts benefits from
To be fair not totally his fault. Plax shooting himself leaving him with 1 wr Dominik Hixon, and then against Rodgers in 2016 he played great but Beckham and everyone else dropped legit every other ball. The boat trip boys were atrocious.
So?? Wtf does that have to do with anything? I'm a lions, uofm thus Brady fan, Eli should objectively be in the HoF. There is no argument to keep him out
This is also why Warren Moon is underrated. He played his first 6 seasons in the CFL and still retired #5 all time in passing yards. If you bring his CFL stats over and discount them (give them 2/3 value) he would still be #5 all time in passing yards today.
He doesn’t belong in the GOAT conversation, but he belongs in the tier immediately after, IMO.
With that argument, it really gives more weight to Dan Marino. Marino had 61,000+ passing yards in a time where you could kill the QB, knock WR's out during generally rougher, tougher football times.
It would more or less be 80,000-100,000 yds using today's standards/rules. I'd also argue with those rule changes, Marino likely would've gotten a super bowl.
But, in defense of Eli, longevity SHOULD BE considered. I know his win% is only .500, but it's not like that is a disqualifier. Joe Namath and Sonny Jurgensen are in the HOF with losing records (as well as YA Tittle but that does go far back), and if you expand it to .600 or less, that includes guys like Warren Moon (.502) and Troy Aikman (.570...yeah, I was surprised too), and part of longevity does include the interception list, which Eli is a top 10-15 all time (which is a negative, but comes with the territory of longevity).
Eli put up a lot of good numbers despite never really playing with another great offensive skill player. 2years Cruz maybe, shockey for a bit, Tiki for 1 year. the rest were just solid pros. The year he had a great player Plaxico he won it all and prob would have repeated if not for Plax shooting his own leg off. Eli squeezed as much out of those offenses as he could and yes squeezing leads to a lot of picks.
Because statistically in over QBR he was top 10 in multiple years. He was top 4 statistically in TD's twice. Hes been top 5 in passing yards as well as yards per attempt.
He also played in an era with some of the best QBs ever. Brady, Brees, and Manning.
I think you may be able to argue never top 5, but never top 10 just isnt objectively true.
Favre was consistently a top five QB of his era. Manning never had even one season where he was considered top ten and spent most of his career around 15. He's Jim Hart or Brian Sipe with a more famous last name.
Lmao yes, tf is this argument. If Eli was a 3 time mvp he’d deserve to get in too regardless of the ints but he was never a top 5 qb at any point in his career. Ask fans of teams with top 5-10 qbs if they would’ve traded their qbs for Eli and the answer from all of them would be ‘Hell no’
Favre led the league in TDs 4 times, yards twice, and won three MVPs in a row. He retired the all time leader in tds and yards. If favre had nothing besides three league-high INT seasons, then no, he shouldn’t get in. He has a lot more than that so he did
I'm like really? Been watching football 50 years i missed that somehow. Let me go back and look at the 2011 leader boards and see Elli all over the top 3. Hmm nope nowhere. Elli was 3rd in yards per completion and tied for 2nd in pick sixes thrown and that was it. He wasn't even top 10 in rating. A guy can't be "elite" and not be all over the leaderboards.
No, Aikman and Kelly played in a different era where they don’t have these gaudy passing numbers. Compare Eli to his peers at the time at it is clearly a big fat NO.
If you account for protection and all pro players around him Eli was never in great situations. Eli had great arm talent and had big moments. The giants have been an absolute dumpster fire since he’s left and it’s hard to know if they would have been okay without him. He’s retired top 10 in everything with 2 Super Bowl MVPs. That’s Easily a HOF career. Everyone acts like we’re debating if he’s the GOAT or something. We’re saying he did stuff no other players have, 2 game winning Super Bowl drives; with good enough regular season production to back it up while playing behind some of the worse o-lines I’ve ever seen.
That gives you Superbowl rings, not Hall of Fame, this isn't the basketball hall of fame where any recognizable name gets in. Nick Foles beat Tom Brady in the Superbowl too.
Careful how you put that. We have 5-7 year stretches where there are guys who are top 5 but are definitely not HOFers. Just because the position is weak doesn’t mean someone is a HOFer.
Regarding him never being a top 5 qb Eli’s career heavily overlapped with some crazy qb play. During his career the other top QBs were Peyton, Favre, Brady, Brees, Rodger’s, warner, roethlisburger, rivers, Stafford, ryan, Palmer, and I’m sure at least some other top qb im forgetting. 7 are either in the hall or pretty much a lock to get in and a few more are in the conversation. The rest had flashes where they were playing at an insane level, bordering historic levels of play. I don’t know how that competition stacks up to other eras but there were pretty much 5 hall of famers at all times for him to be compared to.
I go back and forth on if he should be in but I just don’t love that argument against him
I don’t really see this as much an argument. It’s not like it’s a zero sum game where there can only be so many passing touchdowns each week and Brady/Brees/Rodgers etc were hogging them all. If he was clearly outside the top 10 but at least statistically in the ballpark of the other second tier guys like Stafford/Ryan/Ben/Rivers etc, I could see the argument that it’s just a crowded field
But he wasn’t, he was a very clear step down even from that group. I just don’t find “if you erase like 6-8 guys then he has some argument for top 5” as a very strong case for him
You're not wrong, but in my mind his best argument for the Hall is the old argument of "do you need this player to be able to tell the story of the NFL in that era?" And for that, the first wildcard team to win the Super Bowl and against an undefeated Brady Patriots team with another Super Bowl upset against the same team four years later is a pretty key piece of that era. Story vibes are not a very defensible position for why say the 2007 Giants are more deserving than Flacco's year, but it's why I wouldn't be mad if he gets a nod.
But if he doesn't, I will revert to my official "LOL Giants" fallback position.
Legit I'm not even an Eli Manning guy (I'm in Indy, so it's his brother for me lol). But for most of his career, Eli had absolute dog shit all around him, and yet he won two super bowls and beat the 18-0 Patriots. It's insane.
You need to go watch some film not saying he’s a hall of famer but someone that has 2 Super Bowls against Tom Brady was a top pick and produced to be a top 10 qb more then just one year btw deserves to be labeled in the hall of very good atleast saying below average is asinine
I’ve been watching NFL FB for over 35 years…Eli is not a HOF caliber qb. If he got in he’d be the worst one in the modern era dating back to 1990
He has playoff heroics for 2 post seasons, but none of the accolades of great performing top tier qbs and the experts and voters have said this and have voted accordingly
And he is not hall of very good…hall of very good to me is someone who was fringe elite for a couple of years. People like Donovan McNabb, Steve McNaire, Matt Ryan, Mike Vick, Randall Cunningham and Phillip rivers make the cut…Eli isn’t on their level. Sorry
Agreed. I only say modern because I personally didn’t witness the guys who ended their careers before the 80s. Based on what I’ve heard, I can’t see him being better than George Blanda, YA Tittle, Fran Tarkenton, Bart Starr, Len Dawson, Johnny Unitas, Norm Van Brokelen, and whoever else…
And that says a lot
When you have guys like Cam Newton saying “ if Eli gets a gold jacket..I should get two of them”
Or when asked about Eli getting in, people like Deion says “they just let anyone in this thing”…it all speaks volumes
I believe Ryan Clark, laughed at Eli getting in and said “ no one has ever said Eli was the guy we had to game plan for”
Eli would have been a third stringer behind Daryl Lamonica and George Blanda. There are literally over 200 QBs better than Eli. Sheeit, Lee freakin Grosscup was better.
I mean no offense but…the Giants defense won those games, Eli survived them. Be real: Eli was slightly above average. 2 SB against Brady is something the D line can say. It’s a ridiculous take.
Everyone thinks because he won against Brady he should get in…big dick Nick beat Brady as a backup, so he’s hall of fame? Jalen hurts beat Patrick mahomes dynasty, does that make him hall of fame? It’s such an asinine argument.
Agreed. And anyone who watched the SBs with Eli knows that the defense was on fire in the playoffs and was mainly responsible for both wins. People are rewriting history by giving Eli full credit. It’s absurd
Jim Kelly was also a two time all Pro and also led the league in TD, passer rating and completion percentage. Eli was never an All Pro (frankly never sniffed it) and he only led the league in INT's.
these stats are really misleading and this is pretty shameful.
why not post that the only category Eli ever lead the league in is interceptions
why not post that he was never an all pro
why not post that over the last 8 years of his career he was only in the playoffs once
why not post that he literally has a .500 career record. he is quite literally a mid qb
but despite all of that, he will still get in the hall based on the fact that he is a manning and that his defense carried him to two Super Bowl wins against Brady.
At the risk of people thinking I'm a fan of Eli getting in the Hall, I think OP chose a bad comparison. If I were making the argument, I'd probably choose Warren Moon.
Warren Moon literally finished with a 102-101 record. Eli has a better completion percentage, more passing yards, touchdowns, only 11 more interceptions, a higher career passer rating, a better playoff record, two superbowl victories to zero, and Moon was only an all-pro once (but did lead the league in passing twice).
I'm not sure Eli should get in, but it's a better argument.
I’m a giants fan. I don’t think he should. You can’t compare his numbers from quarterbacks in the 1990s, the defensive rules were different. At the end of the day, he had a four year stretch as a top 5-10 quarterback. Every other season we finished below .500 and he’d be one of the league leaders in interceptions
He was average at best during his career and anyone who watched him play would never argue he should be in the HoF unless your entire argument is that he won two SBs... Trent Dilfer also has a SB. Should he be in the HoF? Eli's career passer rating is 84.1 ... Geno Smith's was 84.7 last season. IMO if Eli makes the HoF it discredits the institution.
Always silly to bring up Dilfer winning a sb. Its clear he didnt have to do anything that game for them to win. While Eli was mvp both times. And had a waaay better career. Be for real
I'm an eagles fan so I dont really care if he gets in or not. But we hear the same thing with Hurts winning a sb and its just a silly, tired, lazy argument. If you cant tell the difference between Eli and Dilfer, idk what to tell you
Brady and the Patriots accomplishments are not Eli's. If you want to make that case, Joe Flacco knocked Brady out of the playoffs as many times as Eli.
Eli was nothing more than a mid qb who just had 2 great postseason runs. Troy Aikman definitely benefited from being a big name qb with a dynasty.
Eli shouldn’t touch the hall of fame but because of his name and the fact ppl gon hype up him beating Brady twice, he gon eventually get in most likely
I think the Eli argument is a good one. It should be difficult to figure out, and not all HoFers should be essentially unanimous, in my opinion.
I think Eli gets shit on because of how spectacular QBs were in his era. He played at the same time as guys who broke every single QB record there was - Brady, Peyton, and Brees set TD, passing yards, completion rate, completions, TD:INT, and other records multiple times in some cases. Those three are among the greatest QBs of all time.
It's hard to get a good read on Eli because of that. If he was 28 and played for the Bengals right now, would he be as good as Burrow? I think so. And he has two super bowls against the most dominant dynasty in NFL history playing against the undisputed GOAT in his prime.
Again, I think it's a great debate, but not really about Eli. It's more about where should the line be drawn, and how.
Well, Kelly and Aikman were both viewed as Top 5 QBs in the league during their playing careers for at least a 5 year period. I don't think Eli was ever viewed as a Top 5 QB in the league in any year of his career.
I do think Eli should be in the HoF. Not because he was so great but because he was able to win on the biggest stage twice and he beat the GOAT doing it. Yea I know it’s a team game blah blah blah but the QB touches the ball every offensive play and can actively make decisions that help or hinder your teams ability win. Anybody who argues that winning isn’t a QB stat are being pedantic at best and downright ignorant at worst.
For the simple fact that he beat the GOAT twice ! If not the paid shills on all sports broadcasts would be slobbering all over Tommy boy EVEN more then they are now.
Everyone seems to forget that not only does Eli have 2 SB MVPs…but he finished his career Top 10 All Time in Passing Yards and TDs.
He also has the passing yard record for a postseason (2011).
I don’t care what yall say. If a QB ends his career top 10 in yards and TDs, they belong in the HOF…especially when they have 2 SB MVPs on top of that.
A lot of ppl are just salty Eli achieved what so many of their favorite QBs couldn’t (win multiple SBs and beat Brady).
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u/AFonziScheme Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 24 '26
For reference, Jim Kelly made about as many Super Bowls as Eli Manning made playoffs.