C.C. Brown On Eli: “You Never Know” With That Guy

Via The Detroit Free Press, former Giants safety C.C. Brown dives into Eli Manning’s problems with consistency:

"“You never know what you’re going to get with that guy. You never know if he’s going to come in and make bad decisions; you don’t know if he’s just going to have one of them Peyton Manning games where he lights you up.”"

And regardless of the supporting facts, your typical interception stat lines do support the case Brown makes… and the Free Press picks right up on it.

"Through five games, Manning leads the NFL with 12 turnovers (eight interceptions, four fumbles) but is one of only seven quarterbacks to throw for more than 1,300 yards."

So the real question is what’s more indicative of Manning’s performance all season?   Is it the 12 turnovers and 8 interceptions or is it the elite status with 1,300 pass yards after 5 games?  People who haven’t seen a single Giants game are content to put those INTs all on Eli… especially if you caught last week’s 3rd quarter action.

But if it were me I’d move for legitimately placing an asterisk next to his interception stat when you talk about this seasons offensive sputtering — 5 of those INTs of course came from very catchable balls that were tipped up into the defense’s hands.  I put 5 of the 8 on Wrs, not the QB.  That argument only goes so far though, and it’s hard to maintain when last weeks interceptions were clearly poor decisions on Eli’s part.

However, just because the total of the Giants offense has been inconsistent — it’s not all on Eli. Nor should it be.  Just as last years troubles in the secondary cannot be totally traced to C.C. Brown as I’ve maintained all along, nor would Brown want it to be.  I mean, that just wouldn’t be fair to “Can’t Cover”.  And it wouldn’t accurately share the blame with Michael “Burnt To a Crisp”Johnson, or Bill “Vanilla Cover 2” Sheridan for that matter.