Eli Manning...Legend in the Making?

So there's this quarterback, right? He's from the South, and he becomes a star in the SEC. There's a lot of hype about him coming out of college, and after a lot of fanfare, he winds up in the Big Apple, where he's expecting to revive a failing team.

Immediately, there are problems: the media is all over him, a lot of his teammates don't like him, and the fans...oh, the fans. Every week there are questions about his ability, his maturity, and, more than anything else, his ability to be a leader of men.

And things aren't going great on the field, either, for the first few seasons. A great performance is followed up by a terrible one. He leads the league in interceptions twice in his first three seasons. Coming into his fourth season, a lot of people have had enough, and even his supporters are starting to question him.

Then, something happens in his fourth season. But not at first - for most of the season, it's the same problems as before. But, somehow, when his team needs big performances late, he gives it to them. Then, the playoffs come and he's brilliant - almost a different quarterback. The two-headed monster at running back is working, and he's the one pulling the strings. There's a confidence in his gaze and his stride that no one has ever seen before. His teammates see this and feed off of it - suddenly, he's their guy, and they'll run through walls for him.

And so he leads his team into the Super Bowl, where he faces unbelievable odds, against a seemingly invincible coach. And you know what? He wins that game, and in doing so becomes a legend.

Who am I talking about? If you said "Eli Manning," go stab yourself in the face with an ice pick. He hasn't led the league in INTs twice - just this season. I'm talking about Broadway Joe himself.

Yes, I'm comparing this guy:























...to this guy:



























...and I'm aware of how insane that seems. But the facts are the facts, and the similarities between Eli Manning as he prepares for the Super Bowl and Joe Namath ahead of Super Bowl III are kind of eerie. Look at their numbers through their first four seasons:

Namath: 55 G, 50.0 Pct., 12,753 YD, 78 TD, 87 INT
E. Manning: 57 G, 54.7 Pct., 11,385 YD, 77 TD, 64 INT

Not to say that this is destiny or anything, but if we're lucky, Eli will be starring in crappy Italian movies within two years, something we all need to see. Or, he could wind up doing an updated version of this commercial, which I'm sure no one wants to see:

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 2:36 PM 5 comments  

A Weekend Recap: Interesting Things That I...OHMYGODELIMANNINGISINTHESUPERBOWL!

You should have seen a lot of updates from me this past weekend, as there was a lot of sports on tap, and despite my being on vacation in Monterey with my family, a lot of sports that I watched. However, you can thank the IT department that administers the "free" WiFi at the Ramada Inn for your lack of updates. When the Internets isn't working on Saturday, and you call the technical support number, and their answer is "uh, I guess we'll trying restarting the server?", you probably are going to be without the wireless Interweb for the rest of the weekend.

So, Let's recap some of the weekend's news stories, in a pithy yet easy-to-digest format:

Let's get the big thing out of the way: Eli Manning is starting the Super Bowl. If you could go back to your past self, say, six weeks ago, and try to explain this to him/her, they would probably shoot you on sight, since clearly you aren't from the future but from Bizarro World.

Perhaps the most bizarre thing out of all of this is that Eli Manning led not one, but two potentially game-winning drives on Sunday, putting the Giants in position to kick the game-winning field goal. And both times the Giants fucked that up, thanks to Lawrence "Norwood" Tynes. AND SOMEHOW THEY STILL WON THE GAME! Albeit, not with a third game-winning drive by Eli - that's just asking too much - but thanks to a dumb throw by Brett Favre.

Which - no surprise - wasn't the only bad throw he made on Sunday. And - no surprise - Joe Buck and Troy Aikman seemed unwilling or just unable to point out. If it wasn't for the fact that RW McQuarters apparently eats a pound of bacon with his bare hands on the sidelines before taking the field (leading to two fumbles), the Giants wouldn't have needed overtime, and it would have been thanks to Brett Favre's poor decisions. (Not to mention the two or three times he threw lame ducks into triple coverage and got away with no being picked off).

Here's the weird part: in the second half, every time Eli Manning went back to pass, you expected something good to happen. Maybe he would get a completion, or a receiver would draw a flag. But you had that same feeling of inevitability that you usually get from his brother, or Tom Brady or...Brett Favre.

How did this happen? Has any QB ever made such huge strides in such a short period of time? It was just midseason that Eli was throwing interceptions like they were butterscotch candies from the Shriners' float at the local parade. Now he's suddenly Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas and John Elway all rolled into one.

As for the other championship game: that went about like everyone expected. The Chargers were able to move the ball fairly well, especially considering that their QB was apparently playing while missing an ACL. Which you kind of need. And their star running back still had all of his various ligaments in his knee, but one of them was bruised so he sat out most of the game. Which, in comparison, kind of makes him a giant pussy.

The Pats did what they've done the whole second half of the season: let a lesser team stick around, and just when it gets interesting...drive, touchdown, game out of reach, yawn. I'm actually sitting here thinking to myself, "Wow, they can't do that against the Giants - Eli will burn them if they let him hang around." And my mind was just blown.

And, oh yeah, USC beat UCLA in basketball. Men's basketball. At UCLA. Which, in the face of Eli Manning starting in the Super Bowl, doesn't seem that odd at all.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 9:31 AM 2 comments