http://articles.nydailynews.com/2006-11-23/sports/18340784_1_barber-shop-mechanics-tiki-barber Eli Shrugs Off Critics NOTEBOOK BY RALPH VACCHIANO DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER Thursday, November 23, 2006 Eli Manning said yesterday that he is aware of the public criticism he has taken for his last two performances, but that it is nothing to be alarmed about. "That's just part of the deal," Manning said. "You're the No. 1 pick, you're expected to play at a high level. That's what I've got to do." Asked what advice he has gotten from his brother, Peyton, he said: "Just hang in there, keep your head up, and it'll all work out." Meanwhile, Tiki Barber still believes in the Giants' struggling quarterback. But he thinks "his mechanics have started to fade away," and believes that has caused "panic" to set in. "What I think is happening right now is that his mechanics have started to fade away a little bit so he's making bad throws," Barber said on "The Barber Shop," the Sirius NFL Radio show he hosts with his brother, Ronde, on Tuesday nights. "When your mechanics start to break down and you start to panic a little bit, your mechanics break down and you can't make a good pass," Barber added. "No matter what you're trying to do, if you're not turning your shoulders right, if you're not thinking about the particulars and the little things and the minutiae, you're going to make the mistakes that he has started to make the last couple of weeks." Both on the radio, and again in the locker room yesterday, Barber insisted, "I have faith in Eli. I think that he'll find a way to correct the mistakes that he's been making." http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=agZLrEa5G4_k&refer=home Giants Coach Coughlin Says He Hasn't Lost Confidence in Manning By Erik Matuszewski - November 28, 2006 01:00 EST Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) -- New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin said he hasn't lost confidence in quarterback Eli Manning, who has six interceptions and two touchdown passes in the team's current three-game losing streak. Manning was intercepted twice as the Giants blew a 21-point fourth-quarter lead two days ago in a 24-21 loss in Tennessee. His second interception came with 32 seconds left and led to the Titans' winning field goal. Only two National Football League quarterbacks have thrown more interceptions this season than Manning, who is two shy of his total from last year. His passer rating ranks 24th out of the league's 32 starting quarterbacks. ``My confidence in him is very strong,'' Coughlin said at a news conference yesterday. ``You try and make sure that there is always a learning experience and you have to take whatever you can from it. Hopefully it doesn't ever happen again.'' The Giants (6-5) host the Dallas Cowboys (7-4) on Dec. 3 for first place in the National Football Conference East Division. While New York is 3-0 in the division and won in Dallas last month, Coughlin said he is concerned about the team's mood coming off the franchise's biggest fourth-quarter collapse in 10 years. ``I don't know if anyone's morale is okay after a defeat like that,'' Coughlin said. ``If feels like somebody cut your heart out. But we have a big game this week. I want it to hurt and that's what I told them. It'd better hurt, but we have to move past it.'' Frustration Coughlin said he spoke to several players individually after the loss to Tennessee, including the 25-year-old Manning. He cautioned his third-year quarterback about making better decisions and containing on-field displays of frustration. ``It's nothing a little success wouldn't help,'' Coughlin said. ``He is human. He is young.'' Coughlin also said he talked with receiver Plaxico Burress about cutting short a route that resulted in Manning's first interception, and with rookie defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka about his failure to tackle Titans quarterback Vince Young on a 4th-and-10 play in the closing minutes. Kiwanuka said he let Young go because he was worried about getting a roughing-the-passer penalty since he thought Young had already thrown a pass. Young scrambled 19 yards for a first down on the play, keeping alive a drive that led to the tying touchdown. After Coughlin met with the team yesterday, the Giants had a players-only gathering in which they talked about moving forward and not assigning blame for the loss to the Titans. `Accountable' ``We all have to be accountable for one another,'' guard David Diehl told the Giants' Web site. Manning said he expects the Giants will rebound at home this week. He pointed to earlier this season when New York gave up 42 points in a loss to Seattle and then went on a five-game winning streak. ``All of a sudden we turned it around and started playing better and winning games,'' Manning said. ``We've been on streaks before. That's how this game goes. You can go cold and get hot. And we have to get hot.''
http://www.aolnews.com/2007/02/06/peyton-manning-eli-will-win-a-super-bowl/ Peyton Manning: 'Eli Will Win a Super Bowl' Feb 6, 2007 – 8:45 AM Only a day after winning his first Super Bowl Peyton Manning promised that his younger brother, Eli Manning, would do the same. "There's no doubt in my mind that Eli will lead his team to a Super Bowl, probably more than one," Peyton said. "I know how hard he works. There's no question he's going to be fine." Don't tell Giants fans that, they may not be able to handle it. It seems like all they want to hear is the bad about Eli, anything optimistic is no good. The majority have already labeled him as a failure and they act like they'd prefer it to stay that way. Unfortunately for those pessimists that's not going to be the case. Eli Manning is anything but a failure and his progression over the last three seasons proves that. It usually takes quarterbacks about five years to truly "find their grove" but if you play in New York you only get one. What people refuse to acknowledge is that Eli has led the Giants to two straight playoff appearances for the first time 1989-1990. What they will tell you is that he has accuracy problems, but won't detail that his completion percentage has gone up every year he's been in the NFL. They'll tell you he throws too many interceptions, but won't detail that he's thrown 48 touchdown passes in the last two seasons. The media and fans are overly and unjustly critical of Eli Manning. Like Peyton, I think that Eli will lead the Giants to more than one Super Bowl championship. He'll never be like his brother, but no one ever will. When all is said and done we'll know Eli as "Eli" and that will be a compliment. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/article734252.ece Brunt: Will the real Eli Manning stand up? stephen brunt PHILADELPHIA— Globe and Mail Published Sunday, Jan. 07, 2007 9:48PM EST Last updated Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2009 9:46PM EDT Over the long winter months, as they recall a strange, disturbing season that was capped by yesterday's 23-20 playoff loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, fans of the New York Giants will be haunted by a difficult question. Just what is it that they have in Eli Manning? A budding superstar, or a big-name, overhyped bust? The game yesterday, like most of Manning's three seasons in the National Football League, was a whole lot of disappointment wrapped around a little tease. To be fair, it's not just him. After imploding down the stretch, the Giants have a host of issues, starting with head coach Tom Coughlin, for whom the playoff loss may well have been a Big Apple swan song. The Eagles had done just the opposite, salvaging a season that seemed lost when quarterback Donovan McNabb went down with a knee injury in November and surging to the finish line behind reborn Jeff Garcia. Their victory yesterday came as no real surprise, though the New York defence played them very tough all day long — and as anyone who has followed the late stages of this NFL season knows, there was nothing automatic about the 38-yard, David Akers field goal that won the game on the final play. (Give Eagles coach Andy Reid points for bringing in back up quarterback Koy Detmer off the street this week, purely because of his skills as a holder for placements. Detmer did with an imperfect snap what Tony Romo couldn't do for the Dallas Cowboys the night before.) The real hero for Philly was running back Brian Westbrook, who refused to be stopped during the final, 46-yard, clock-killing drive that set up the winning kick. (Westbrook finished with 141 yards on 20 carries and was nearly matched by the Giants' Tiki Barber, who ran for 137 yards on 26 carries in what he says was his final NFL game.) Still, while it may not be just, the truth is that because of who Manning is, because of his last name, because of how he wound up in the Meadowlands and because of what the franchise sacrificed to get him, he'll always get more than his share of the credit or the blame. By this point in his professional career, big brother Peyton was throwing for more than 4,000 yards with the Indianapolis Colts, and his touchdown-to-interception ratio was better than 2 to 1. An unfair comparison, since all they share are parents? Well how about the two quarterbacks picked after Manning in the 2004 draft, Ben Roethlisberger, who won a Super Bowl with the Steelers last year, and Philip Rivers, who led the San Diego Chargers to the best regular-season record this season in this his first full season as a starter. Manning wound up in New York because, in the manner of Eric Lindros, he and his family decided the Chargers, who held the first pick in the 2004 draft, were a dead-end organization. When they went ahead and took him despite his protests, he refused to join the team. The Giants traded away not just Rivers, whom they chose with the third pick, but also a first-round pick in 2005 that turned into Shawne Merriman, last season's defensive rookie of the year. (If the Chargers win the Super Bowl this year, the Lindros/Flyers/Nordiques/Avalanche parallel will be complete.) You pay that kind of a price, you expect a star. You don't expect the guy to spin his wheels for three years. You don't expect him to play the way he did for most of yesterday's game, struggling to find open receivers, getting shown up by teammates Plaxico Burress and Jeremy Shockey when he couldn't see them in the clear. (Just try to imagine receivers standing on the sideline and yelling at, say, Tom Brady, while he stood and took it, and just try to imagine a head coach allowing it.) With the Eagles pinned in their own end for the entire first quarter, unable to record a first down until almost 13 minutes had passed, Manning led the Giants to a single touchdown, on which he nearly overthrew wide-open Burress. After that, for most of the next 21/2 quarters, he looked lost, while the Eagles came back to tie the game and then methodically build a 10-point lead. But then in the fourth quarter, down by a touchdown with the rain pelting down, with the clock running out, with the Eagles' fans hollering for blood, after his offensive lineman took consecutive false-start penalties ("Maybe I should learn to yell louder so they can hear me better," Manning said afterward) and then a holding call to make it first-down-and-30 on the Eagles' 43, came the tease. Throwing off balance, under pressure, Manning somehow got the ball to Burress 18 yards downfield just before being flattened. Then he hit him again near the sideline and watched Burress dance past a defensive back, all the way to the 11. On the next play, he threw a beautiful strike to Burress as he crossed the back of the end zone, a big-time sequence worthy of Brady, or Joe Montana or that other Manning at his best. So which is the real Eli, and which is the illusion?
With better coaching that's how the articles about Sanchez would have read near the end of the season. AFTER these were written Eli had some real stinkers still left in the tank, including his 9 for 25 for 74 yards in a blowout loss to the Saints at home and 14 for 32 for 121 yards with 2 Int's in a blowout loss to the Bears at home. Jets fans are frustrated right now, but that's because they have bought into the bullshit that Rex and Tannenbaum have been spooning them the last few seasons. The Jets got lucky in 2009 and made a run of it with a rookie QB at the helm and a mad scientist who nobody could understand running the offense for them. They got an up-season in 2010 out of a collection of players that were going to blow away in the wind after the season was over. They got a lot of hot air propelling them in 2011 and so somebody has to be at fault and like idiots the fans have picked the most valuable asset the team owns in terms of actually potentially winning a championship at some point and decided to take the organizational failures out on him. If you're really upset about Sanchez right now take those frustrations out on the person who really screwed things up: Mike Tannenbaum.
Wow. Really? And of course, that opinion is not based on what Eli has accomplished since his third year, right. You are being completely objective. The point is that you don't give up on a young QB after a season where the entire team did not perform. YOu fix the team and don't take the short sighted view that most simplistic fans take by blaming the QB.
It's 2 completely different people..that's like saying with good coaching Jamarcus russel woulda been a good QB. Some have it. Some don't.
When you have a bad year, especially in New york you get killed. I'm still a believer in Sanchez. The fact is he's done alot of good things along the way. No sport gets more over analyzed than football. Keep in mind the this team was 8-8 not 4-12. Plenty of work to be done but it's the NFL. No league changes more year to year.
No it's not. Based on Sanchez's playoff performances, 4th quarter comebacks and flashes of brilliance, you can say that he has "It". You just have to be willing to give him time.
Eli Manning won a Super Bowl in the 4th year of his 6 year rookie contract. He got a 6 year contract extension for ridiculous money BECAUSE of that Super Bowl run. Mark Sanchez has not won a Super Bowl yet. He's 3 years into a 5 year deal. Yeah, if Mark Sanchez wins a Super Bowl next season, I'd be for extending him. If he shows DRASTIC improvement, I'd also be for extending him. But if not, can we please stop with the excuses already??
i know the moral of the story is "don't give up too early!" but the success of guys like eli has no effect on mark sanchez. eli and brees are brought up like they're comparable players. brees' greatest strength is that he's hyper accurate. eli is credited to be a mini peyton at the line of scrimmage, reading defenses and adjusting. these are probably the two things sanchez is the worst at. but mark is much more athletic and mobile than these guys. anyways, point being that every qb is different. you could probably find articles about guys like joey harrington and david carr saying the same things about early career struggles and flashes of greatness. again, this has no bearing on mark sanchez except to say that sanchez might not become a good qb despite having somewhat successful third years. it's probably too early to abandon the sanchez ship, but not because of eli or drew brees. because we've seen him be a successful qb too many times to just deny his ability. his inconsistency is extremely frustrating.
Eli is the exception, not the rule -- generally when a QB shows so little through his first three seasons, he's not destined for great things. For what it's worth, Sanchez has been better in the beginning of his career than Manning was. That has absolutely no predictive value at all, but I guess it's worth noting.
There's the Joe flacco's and mark sanchez' of the NFL. And then there's the Staffords and Vicks. Then you got the Mannings brady's and rodgers. This season we'll see whether he's an overpaid game manager, or a quality QB.
THIS..... While I think you give Sanchez a chance to improve, I also think too many fans just assume he is going to turn into Brees and Eli. Alex Smith has shown flashes, and still blows. Hell Vince Young showed flashes! At the end of the day it's all about luck. Some guys pan out, some don't.
