No.

OK – anyone who reads my stuff knows I might write just a bit more than this, and they will not be disappointed. With Eli’s future HOF ballot coming up, I am thinking this piece might be one of the pre-eminent analysis articles that will ever be written about this. No, I do not work for Sports Illustrated.

“But HE WON 2 super bowls!”

That is the argument from my buddy “J”. We go back and forth on this in chats a bunch with the guys, but now I’m going to create my case here, and any time the topic comes up, I’m going to fire this article at him. His big argument against me also is “I don’t know football”. I do, but he’s been smoking me in fantasy football the past few years as I don’t have the time to watch like I did 20 years ago. That being said, my analysis skills on many subjects I’d put at world class when I do a deep dive. So, we will analyze my arguments below.

Who gets in to the Hall of Fame?

We have to first look at who gets in, and by what criteria, to determine if Eli is going in. As of this writing, there are 28 quarterbacks in the pro football hall of fame, which is including the AFL prior to the merger. The HOF opened in Canton in 1963, and with 61 years of existence, that means one quarterback gets in about every 2 years.

At any given time, there are 32 quarterbacks that are starting, and over a 2 year period, maybe you have 50 quarterbacks that start due to injury, retirement, etc. With this snapshot, you’d expect that quarterback to be THE BEST of THE BEST over that 2 year span, or perhaps several 2 year spans. At the very least, you’d expect them to be THE BEST in any given year.

“But Nate, he won 2 super bowls”. Dan Marino never won a super bowl, yet he is in. In Marino’s second year, he put up 48 touchdowns and 5,000 passing yards. Absolutely stellar. CBS Sports ranked him as the 5th best QB in the HOF, so presumably ever.

In that same breath, you can see QBs at the bottom that got in because of 2 championships.

I then like to counter, “Is Trent Dilfer a HOFer?” Trent Dilfer played for the 2000 Ravens who won the Super Bowl that year. That is the team with the stupid awesome defense that shut down everyone led by Ray Lewis. In the 4 playoff games that year, the Ravens gave up 3, 10, 3, and 7. That is, they allowed a TOTAL of 23 points over FOUR playoff games to the league’s BEST TEAMS!!

Did Trent Dilfer win that super bowl, or did the Ravens? Since a TEAM has 53 players, one can see how the winning could be shared across the team – and not attributed to a single player. No one that I know of, is walking around stating “Trent Dilfer won the super bowl”. No, the RAVENS won the super bowl.

How important IS the quarterback?

We see above with Dilfer that with an amazing defense, one just needs a quarterback who hands the ball off and doesn’t turn it over. Except for the wildcat, you can make the argument that a quarterback is THE most important player on the team, and thus because of this, HE should get all of the accolades. It is true that in some cases like a 55-7 drubbing where your quarterback throws for 7 touchdowns, that in that one game, he can be the difference maker. But could the other teams’ best two corners be out and this allowed an above average quarterback to light up the other team?

I can say that the quarterback is extremely important. But what goes into an NFL game that might affect the score?

  • Defense. Does your team give up 100 points a game? How can a quarterback overcome a defense giving up 30+ a game?
  • Play calling. Assume the coach calls 80% run plays, would this mean the RB is more important that game?
  • Weather. Some dome teams might put up silly numbers where some cold weather teams that play outside might not put up higher scores.
  • Turnovers. There is a direct correlation between turnovers and win%. Let’s put a pin in this one.
  • Offensive line. My 1980s-90s eagles had probably one of the worst lines in the entire league. This had my Randall Cunningham scrambling for his life all the time. But if there’s pressure in your face every play, it can seriously affect your stat lines.

Let’s revisit Randall above. His career numbers are 207 TD, 134 INT, 56.6% pass, 81.5 rate. But his “QB record” is 82-52-1.

His best year ever, by a mile, was in 1998 when he was 35. That year, he had Cris Carter (like when he had on the Eagles) but also had Randy Moss. Wait. Both of them are in the Hall of Fame???

Magically, when Randall played with 2 hall of fame wide receivers, he takes the team to a 13-1 record, 34 TD, 10 INT, and a 106 passer rating. He was first team all pro. They lost in the NFC championship that year with a bad kick at the end, but I had them favored to win the super bowl as my Eagles went to shit that year and I enjoyed rooting for Randall and Cris Carter. It was the first time ever I abandoned my Eagles during a year to watch another team – but they had former Eagles.

So an AVERAGE quarterback looks like HOF one year when surrounded by an amazing team? Hmmm.

Could you make the argument that Randall was an “above average” quarterback who, paired with 2 HOF talents, was then able to look the part of a HOF QB? If that’s the case, then why would QB record be a stat at all?

So in the case of Eli, was he THE GUY that won them those super bowls? Apparently, he was MVP of both, and in both cases, as “J” says, “he beat Brady”.

The claim is absurd as they actually don’t face each other. They face the defense of the other team.

Let’s look at Eli’s 2008 SB winning giants (2007 season and played SB in 2008).

  • You had a 1000 yard rushers in Jacobs and 600 yards in Ward. The next year, both had 1000 each. One could argue that O Line was amazing.
  • You had 3 prominent pass catchers that were above average in Amani Toomer, Jeremy Shockey (TE), and Plexico Burress
  • You had Michael Strahan, Osi Umenyiora, and Justin Tuck on D. Dear God.
  • Eli had 56% comp rate (terrible), 23TD and 20 INT. He led the league in INTs that year.
  • Defense gave up 65 points in 4 games, or 16.25 points.

One could make the argument here that Eli was on a REALLY good team, and despite his below average play, he played lights out in the SB.

What about his 2012 SB win? (2011 season and played SB in 2012).

  • 9-7 in regular season
  • You had Jacobs/Bradshaw combined for 1200 yards rushing – nothing incredible
  • You had Cruz and Nicks at WR for a decent amount of catches. Nothing incredible.
  • On Defense, you had Osi, Tuck, and JPP wrecking everything.
  • Eli had 61% comp, 29TD and 16 INT. He was 6th for comeback player of the year.
  • The Giants, in 4 playoff games, gave up 56 points. That is a defense giving up 14 points per game.

Do you know the saying, “defense wins championships”?

One can make the STRONG argument that the Ravens D won that 2000 championship. One can also make the argument that the Giants D won both of those championships. In 2008, they gave up 14 points to Brady, and in 2012, they gave up 17 points to him.

Please, please, please let that ruminate. Savor the flavors. Swish it around your mouth. The Giants D gave up 15.5 ppg to the best QB of all time.

“But HE won two super bowls”.

No sir, he played on two teams that won the Super Bowl that won primarily on the defense’s ability to hold the best QB of all time to 15.5 points. The SB titles were WELL deserved. But to say HE won it, is silly. I know he had the SB MVP. But HE didn’t stop Brady. At all. His defense did.

Defense wins championships. Look how Philly beat Brady’s Patriots. With a backup QB against a defense that failed Brady, giving up 41 points.

But look at his touch downs!!

Another argument “J” makes is – “look at those touchdowns and yards!”

I’m going to tell you now about one of my favorite baseball players, Jamie Moyer. He was a Phillie for awhile. Played until he was like 48. He had 269 career wins. 2400 strikeouts. If you just look at these numbers of accumulation, you would say that he belongs in the HOF since Smoltz only had 213 wins and HE is in!

In baseball, a record is a bit more relevant, as YOU are the defense for the team. Remember “defense wins championships!” Well, a pitcher who has a good win-loss record is essentially giving up less than league average runs, day in and day out. I watched Curt Shilling throw shut outs all the time in Philly, only to see him play on shitty teams and not get the wins because his team couldn’t score runs. Suddenly, you put him on teams who can score and he starts winning world series titles.

With football, some stats of accumulation are like Jamie Moyer’s wins. Those 269 wins came over 25 years. He also had 209 losses and a 4.33 ERA for a .563 win percent. Smoltz’ were over 21 years, but he spent a good portion of that time in relief – which don’t really add to wins, only losses.

So Eli had 366 TD, but he also had 244 INT.

By all measures, the “gold standard” for a “good quarterback” is a 2:1 TD to INT ratio. This is a 1.5 ratio. Meaning, he had a lot of TD, but he also turned the ball over a lot – providing more opportunities for the other teams to score on his D.

You have people like Brady at 3:1, and Aaron Rogers at 4:1. One can make the argument that Marino and Favre were around 1.5:1.

It might be of interest to look at him compared to others in the HOF, and those possibly in the run to be in the HOF. Pro football reference put out a score of those who could/should/are in, based off of a lot of metrics.

With this, I took this and put it into Excel, then calculated the TD:INT for you. I wanted to see where Eli was among them. While this may be hard to see on your phone, the green are those with a closer to 2:1 or better TD:INT ratio, those in the grey are closer to Eli’s 1.5, and those in orange fall short of Eli’s ratio.

It shows the avg HOF QB is at 1.34, and this would mean then that Eli at 1.5 is a lock! Not so fast. They did have different eras. So maybe there was a lot more running back in the day. Tarkenton, Starr, Bradshaw, Staubach, Fouts – all of them are legendary, but are in orange. Fouts and Tarkenton don’t have any championships.

Maybe we might do better comparing quarterbacks of Eli’s era against him?

The gray on here is Warner, Marino, Elway, and Favre. I told my buddy “J” that Eli reminded me of Favre. But, he sort of played in a different era. Eli replaced Warner.

If one gets in every 2 years, maybe we need to look at Eli against them?

Let’s look at Eli against peers

So if perhaps one gets in every 2 years, on average, I wanted to look at those who are NOT in the HOF, who are at the end of their careers, or recently retired.

One of interest, I’d like to compare to Eli. Phillip Rivers. Drafted the same year. Let’s compare.

OK – this isn’t even close. “But he won 2 SB!!” I sort of demonstrated his defense did that.

But look at pro bowls. Eli played 16 years and was a pro bowler only 4 times. 25% of his seasons had him in the top 6-8. Let that one sink in. Aren’t these in the HOF supposed to be the BEST at their positions? He wasn’t even the best in his DRAFT CLASS.

Let’s now look at a few others that will be going up against him for HOF voting.

Brees smashes him. 13 pro bowls, 5 All Pro, 1 SB?

What about the GOAT? His 7 championships most certainly get him in over Manning.

What about Big Ben? He also has 2 SB, so he gets in over Manning.

OK – but what about Matt Ryan? He also beats Manning head to head in everything but SB wins.

Aaron Rogers is still playing, but for how long?

Even Russell Wilson crushes him. Eli has 50 games on him, and Wilson will catch his yards – but look at that rating???!!!

What to make of all of this info?

Don’t take my word for it, Yardbarker has Eli as the 15th best QB of the 2010s, about when he should be in his prime.

In 2016, PFF listed their top 10 QB of the past decade, and Eli was number 10.

Remember, every 2+ years or so, a WORLD CLASS QB, who stands above his peers, makes his way into the HOF.

Eli’s passer rating of 84 is lower than that of Donovan McNabb. His QB record of 117-117 is worst among all of the QBs listed above. Remember what I said about Cunningham? You put HOF receivers with him, and he looked all world. Eli had some remarkable pass catchers, and not only that, had a pretty good O line to protect him.

What it came down to, was I loved when my Eagles played against him. He was “the chucker” who was good for 3 INT against them.

From the NYT:

“In Philadelphia, of course, Manning’s legacy will be his generosity. His 37 interceptions against the Eagles (including playoffs) are more than he threw against any other team in his 16-year career. Let’s revisit those memorable moments of kindness.”

They even made a fun pie chart for me.

They even told me when he threw those INTs…

Ohhhhh Nelly!! Look at those 4th quarter turnovers against my Iggles.

I believe IF Eli is to get in, it has to be in his first year of eligibility. Simply put, all of those 7-9 people above who are better than him are either retired right after him, have recently retired, or sitting in a rocker right now about to retire. Meaning, he has no shot against:

  • Brees (last season 2020)
  • Rivers (last season 2020)
  • Big Ben (last season 2021)
  • Brady (last season was 2022 where he had a rate of 90 at age 45)
  • Ryan (last season 2022)
  • Rogers – still playing
  • Wilson – still playing

Meaning, among his peers, I have him as 8th best. These are players that approximated his playing timeline.

The last QB to be on the ballot was Peyton Manning, elected in 2022. Before him was Kurt Warner in 2017. Then Brett Favre in 2016.

If you look at Pro Football Reference HOF tracker, let’s look at the top 15 or so they have listed. These are recently retired players or still playing.

You have Eli here at 9.

“But he won 2 super bowls!!” “He had 366 TD!!” “He had 57,000 yards passing!” Jamie Moyer has 269 wins. Sometimes, you need to understand the context of numbers, and relative performance to peers. Likewise, since football has 53 players, it also makes sense to understand the context of the defense here in winning super bowls. In baseball, the pitcher has a defensive metric of wins – how low can they keep the score, but they are powerless to the offensive numbers – such as Curt Schilling. Quarterbacks produce offensive numbers – but are powerless to what their defense gives up. Turnovers here play a big part in giving the other teams’ offenses more chances to score, thus affect your team more negatively. For this reason, a TD:INT metric is of interest to watch.

But this also is different in different eras. Consider that:

Prior to 1980, a lot of these top QB had a 1:1 TD to INT ratio. See the likes of Bradshaw

From 1980 to 2010, you saw more chucking – and 1.5:1 was more relevant with a Marino and Elway and Favre getting to ball out to receivers.

From 2010, you can see a clear move to 2:1 or 3:1 as efficiency and accuracy starts to become more important. Amongst his peers, Eli’s 1.5:1 does not compare at all to Rogers 4:1 or Brady’s 3:1.

Because he was a part of a team who won 2 super bowls, the precedent has been established to put QBs like this in the HOF, despite an otherwise above average career. Given Eli’s contemporaries have also won super bowls AND had far superior numbers, you can make the better argument for them over him in the HOF.

The problem is, over the next 5 years, all 9 of them will be showing up on ballots. Unless Eli gets in for 2025, he’s never getting in as Brees (sure fire lock) and Rivers (numbers crush Eli) and then Ben the following year is highly likely over Eli.

2025 or bust. IF they elect him, I’m not burning down any cities, however, it might water down the HOF as many far better than him are coming up, and in each case, you can make an argument not only that they were better quarterbacks, but they were arguably hands down superior over him. Just look at the one on one comparisons.

The NY Post agrees with me:

“The 49 Hall of Fame voters are required to select at least four but no more than eight inductees in each class. There are no position limitations, but Manning unwittingly put himself in a good spot to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer before his résumé is dissected compared to the others.”

Fox Sports talked of Eli in the 2025 class voting:

“1. Eli Manning is expected to be a first-ballot induction, largely because of his two Super Bowl wins. Do you think he is a Hall of Famer? 

Ralph Vacchiano: Well, first, I’m not so sure that he’s going in on the first ballot. I think the way he is viewed outside of New York is much different than the way he’s viewed in the New York area. It’s always been an uphill battle for him to get respect, and I’m not sure enough voters are there yet.

That said, I’ll be honest, even though I covered every snap of his career and wrote a book about him, I’m on the fence. It’s true that you can’t tell the story of the NFL without a lengthy discussion about his two Super Bowl championships. And the numbers say he was a great player for a long time. 

But an all-time great? He played 16 seasons and there was only one year — 2011, when he threw for 4,933 yards, 29 touchdowns and 16 interceptions and won a Super Bowl — when I thought he was one of the top three QBs in the league. Most of the other seasons he probably ranked sixth or seventh.”

They further went on to mention – perhaps IF he gets in, he’s not a first ballot. THIS is his ultimate problem, with the elite QBs coming in for voting after him that will eclipse him.

“David Helman: I think we can find a compromise here. Yes, because of Eli Manning’s two Super Bowl victories (over Tom Brady, no less) and his two Super Bowl MVPs, I do think he is a Hall of Famer. In the big picture, I have no issue with his bust going up in Canton. 

That said, I just don’t think it should be a first-ballot election. First-ballot consideration should be reserved for the greatest of the great — Reggie White, Larry Allen, Eli’s older brother, Peyton. If there’s any debate to be had about your credentials, you have no business going in immediately. Not when players like Antonio Gates and DeMarcus Ware have had to wait. Let Eli go in after two or three years, when we’ve had a chance to enshrine some better players.”

Eli MIGHT have some luck in that there’s no other QB, but he has 49 people to vote for between 4-8 names and a name must have 80% of the vote. If people are on the fence, maybe that gives him at besty 65% the first year. After him is Brees and Rivers. Then Big Ben. Then Brady. No.

I just don’t see it. I think my friend “J”s issue here is he is a NY Giants fan, and while he’s right to be proud of the 2 super bowls, he may be a bit of a homer in respects to how Eli was actually viewed around the league.

I find it unlikely he gets in, unless he’s a first ballot. As mentioned above, first ballot inductees are the elite of those elite – like Tom Brady – and Eli is not that. As the years go on, his peers are all added to the mix, pushing him further down.