The other Manning

As big a fan as I am of Peyton is also approximately how much I dislike his brother Eli. Refusing to play for a certain team coming out of college, before you've even taken a professional snap, does not sit well with yours truly. And then even going so far as to say which team you will play for, and in particular making such an obviously self-glorifying choice as New York, thereby anointing yourself as the future media king of the league, and all this, let us reiterate, before you've even played a down in the NFL--well, that pretty well assures you a permanent place on my bad list.

(You know, I can't help but wonder if the fact that Peyton would have ended up with the Jets had he gone pro after his junior year at Tennessee played a factor in Eli's petulance. Perhaps Eli saw that as a missed opportunity and was determined that a Manning would get to New York and get the exposure he deserved. Or something.)

Needless to say, no one has been more delighted than I at the utterly abysmal performance of Eli thus far. A quarterback rating of 0.0 yesterday? Are you serious? I can't help but get a little choked up. A buddy of mine at BullySports wrote a pretty hilarious article as a letter from Drew Brees to Eli Manning, with the former asking the latter how life was up in New York right now when he could have been in sunny San Diego. (Not that the Chargers would be 10-3 with Eli at the helm, of course.)

All this being said, the coverage of the Eli debacle has me just a wee bit confused. After two disastrous outings, I was thinking about coming out and saying, "Look, Eli doesn't just stink now. Maybe he just stinks period! Maybe he'll never be any good!" But I didn't write it, and after four disasters, I thought I'd missed the boat on that, and everybody would be saying it. But no! On everywhere from PTI to SportsCenter with Mikes Irvin (genius, by the way--more later) and Ditka, to our old friends at Snap Judgment (natch), the entire debate is centered around whether Coughlin started Eli too early, or if he should bench him now to er, prevent emotional scars or something. Underlying everything is this seemingly unquestionable assumption that Eli is the Anointed, that he will come around sooner or later, and he is the Quarterback of the Future for the next decade or so for the Giants.

Hello, people! The man has a QB rating of 33.6! 516 yards in 4 games! 6 Ints to 1 TD! Etc.! Shouldn't we be starting to wonder at this point? It's like Darko Milicic. He sucked last year. But again, nobody wanted to just come out and say, "The guy sucks!" because hey, he was the #2 overall pick. He's gotta be good, right? Just needs some development time. Well, actually, no, the guy just sucks. I suppose most people are going to try to argue that the jury's still out on Darko, but man, you've just got to develop faster than this. So far in this his second year he's gotten into 11 of the Pistons' 20 games and is averaging a whooping 1.3 points per game. It's not happening, folks! The first time I saw Darko in a game, about a year ago, he was in during garbage time (of course), and somehow he got the ball wide open under the basket for an easy dunk. I mean, trust me, he could not have been more wide open. But he missed it! He missed the dunk! If you're 7 feet tall and missing wide-open dunks, folks, it's time to try out for your local church ball team.

Now, I have to admit that I haven't actually seen Eli play outside of the SportsCenter "highlights." And I'm no talent scout anyway, so who knows if that would even make a difference. And, to add one more disclaimer, I'm sure that Eli will get better. But I'd bet some pretty serious cash that the Giants' front office is feeling pretty nervous right now that their Anointed may not ever come around to lead the franchise to glory. And I'm somewhat perplexed that the media is continuing to give Eli the white-glove treatment this far into the experiment.

Michael Irvin: Genius

I wasn't much of a fan of Irvin's when he was a player, but man, now that he's with the media, I love the guy! The latest example of the man's brilliance came this afternoon during the aforementioned rehash with Dan Patrick and Ditka. They were discussing Moss' terrible pass from yesterday. Patrick asked Irvin if he ever threw a pass for the Cowboys. (By the way, it really helps if you can do Irvin's priceless voice/accent while reading this.)

Irvin: No, I never threw a pass. What would I want to throw a pass for? That doesn't help my stats, doesn't help my negotiations.

Hruby watch

I know there are some readers out there who are still questioning Hruby's legitimacy as a member of the Hall, so I thought I'd keep an eye on him. I'm telling you, the guy never disappoints. Today's Snap Judgment features the following throw-away line from Sir Patrick:

Dumb or a darn fool ... hmmm, that's really a question of semantics, isn't it? Too bad I'm not William Safire.

Hey, way to work that Safire reference in there, Pat! Not just another dumb jock-carrier, you! Unlike the rest of these oafs, you read the whole darned New York Times--and the Arts section on weekends!

And by the way, I think we can add "semantics" to the list of terms the inclusion of which automatically qualifies a sentence for pretentiousness.