Years ago, our very own Eli Manning, did not get off to the best start to his career. In fact, in his first four seasons he had similar numbers to Mark Sanchez’s career (four seasons).

Sanchez has passed for 11,887 with 68 touchdowns and 68 interceptions and helped the Jets reach the AFC Championship game in his first two seasons as a pro. In Eli’s first four seasons, he passed for less yards, 11,385, but threw for a better touchdown/interception ratio with 77/64. Even though Eli has always seemed to have a more promising career since he was drafted, he had his Sanchez moments in his early years.

As faith would have it, Eli went on to win the Super Bowl at the end of his fourth season and has showed no signs of slowing down ever since. He has greatly progressed and has truly become an elite quarterback when he won his second Super Bowl ring. Since 2010, it seems as though Sanchez has regressed mightily.

I am in no way saying that Sanchez could ever amount to what Eli has become, but stranger things have happened. If I were the Jets, I would let him finish the season out and give him one more shot at leading this team next year. If he is used properly and has the help of a surrounding cast, he could be extremely valuable. If they let him go, they may regret not giving him that last chance. After all, one man’s trash could become another man’s gold.

Cowboys at Giants: Giants, I think the Giants are healthier and should have the home edge.

Atlanta at Kansas City: I think K.C. is going to be much improved, but I also believe that it doesn’t start today.

Washington at New Orleans: New Orleans at home with their us against the world attitude.

New England at Tennessee: New England is supposed to go 16-0 again this year. I guess they must won this one then.

Buffalo at The Jets, and Tim Tebow: I think Buffalo will smother the Jets offense, and find a way to win.

Seattle at Arizona: A complete toss-up.  Neither team should win this game

Carolina at Tampa Bay: Ronde Barber makes his 200th start and Greg Schiano coaches his first game. Nice story, but not enough to beat Cam.

Cincinnati at Baltimore: Another game that could go either way, but Baltimore gets the nod at home.

Indianapolis at Chicago: The new offense in Chicago should be able to carry this one home.

Philadelphia at Cleveland: The Dynasty of the Eagles should be able to pull this one out.

St. Louis at Detroit: St. Louis not ready for this step up in class just yet.

Jacksonville at Minnesota: Another game that could go either way, but with MJD holding out till this week, I’ll go with Minny at home.

Miami at Houston: It’s Houston’s year to make a statement…easy start here.

San Francisco at Green Bay:  A much improved Green Bay defense against a team still looking for an identity on offense.

Pittsburgh at Denver: An aging Pittsburgh with a few players missing.  Peyton shows he’s healthy.

San Diego at Oakland:  San Diego has no running game, and as usual is in complete disarray to begin a season.

Nov 8, 2009; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning (left) and San Diego Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers talk prior to game at Giants Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jim O

Take a look at this brief off-season quarterback carousel just so that you can understand where I’m coming from:

• The Indianapolis Colts cut Peyton Manning so they can draft Andrew Luck.
• Peyton Manning signs with the Denver Broncos after putting the NFL on a three year waiting list. Wait, what? It wasn’t three years? Sure seemed like it.
• The St. Louis Rams got a fortune in return from the Washington Redskins so they can take RG3 right after the Colts select Luck.
• Matt Flynn signs with the Seattle Seahawks after being Aaron Rodgers’ backup.
• Jason Campbell leaves Oakland after having his starting job taken away and signs with the Chicago Bears to become Jay Cutler’s backup.
• Kyle Orton does the same thing and goes to backup Tony Romo in Dallas after starting for two teams last year: the Kansas City Chiefs and the Denver Broncos.
• Denver Broncos’ third string QB Brady Quinn moves to Kansas City to become that team’s newest backup QB.
• Chad Henne left the Dolphins to challenge for the starting QB job with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
• The New York Jets brought in Drew Stanton to be Mark Sanchez’s new body double.
• David Garrard comes back to the league after a one year absence to join the Miami Dolphins.

We have backups becoming starters, starters becoming backups, rookies being drafted presumably to start from day, guys out of the league for a year and one of the greatest QBs to ever play in the NFL cut for a player to have never played a down of professional football before. Confused yet? That’s because it is confusing to keep track of which quarterback is on which team now in the new quarterback driven NFL.

With the signing of Manning to the Broncos there is now another starting quarterback that could be had for the right price: Tim Tebow for a 5th round pick, presumably. The two teams with a most glaring need at a QB, if the 49ers don’t bring back Alex Smith, that is, are the Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins. You have to include Miami because a Matt Moore/David Garrard combo doesn’t scare anyone.

The Browns were never in the hunt for Manning but aren’t enamored with incumbent QB Colt McCoy and lost out on the RG3 sweepstakes. The Dolphins went all in on Manning but came back empty handed; then their second choice Flynn spurned them for the Seahawks. That leaves the potential of either one of those two teams signing Alex Smith, he of the 49ers, who has no idea of his job status thanks to the Peyton Derby, and the aforementioned Tebow.

Plus there are other potential first round quarterbacks besides Luck and RG3 that could be taken by the Browns or Dolphins like Ryan Tannehill or Brandon Weeden, both of whom, if you ask me aren’t worthy of being selected in the top ten of the draft but might be taken that early because the Dolphins (picking 8^th overall) and the Browns (picking 4^th overall) won’t have any choice other than dangling a future first round draft pick in order to trade back into the latter part of the upcoming 2012 NFL Draft.

By my calculations we might have a total of 11 teams with a new starting QB/quarterback question marks entering next season:

-Redskins – RG3, Vikings – Ponder/Webb?, Jaguars – Gabbert/Henne? Or maybe even Tebow?, San Fran – Smith/Kaepernick/Josh Johnson?, Arizona – Kolb/Skelton? Cleveland – McCoy?, Seattle – Flynn/T-Jax? Titans – Locker/Hasselbeck?, Indy – Luck, Miami – Moore/Garrard? and Denver – Peyton Manning.

11! That is a ridiculous amount of turnover at the most important position in football.

Now you can see why I’m pretty happy that the Giants have Eli Manning and we didn’t have to put up with the Peyton circus and the revolving game of quarterback musical chairs that teams like the Redskins and Dolphins plus players like Tebow and Smith have had to put up with this offseason. Heck, the Giants are even keeping their back-up QB David Carr.

While most people were totally enthralled by where Peyton would land, we here in Giants land didn’t really take notice until the 49ers supposedly got into the mix.  I think this was just a ploy to have the other two teams, Tennessee, and Denver, sweeten the pot a bit.  The 9ers now must repair their relationship with their starting free agent QB Alex Smith.  Peyton Manning may have just made him a rich man too….and they both have the same agent….sounds fishy to me!

So, the AFC has Peyton back, in a city the NFL needs to be good.  Win win all around.  Tim Tebow will probably now be on the trading block, and that will spur a new news cycle of craziness until he lands somewhere else.

Here are some quick hits from around the NFL and the blog worlds today:

The Dolphins fire Tony Sparano. Read more here.

The Chiefs fire Todd Haley. Read more here.

Justin Tuck is a little bit beat up from last nights game. Listen to his interview on WFAN by clicking here. His gut feeling is that he will play.

Giants.com has an update from Tom Coughlin regarding the latest injury news, click here for that great information!

Bradshaw is keeping his mouth closed about his benching, you can read about that here.

Finally, our friends at Barstool Sports New York have an interesting take on Tebow, look here.

The Bavaro!

OK fans, let’s get this out of the way right now. The Rams?! Really? The Rams beat the Saints. My head is still spinning on its neck like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. What can you say? Any given Sunday. Well, we’ve got another Sunday (and Monday) right around the corner and our picks are fresh out of the oven.

ESPN has baked up a tasty little batch of predictions for the upcoming week, as did I. Each week I go head to head with the experts and their two fortune telling robots. The race is pretty close and is still anyones game. Read on to see how they did, how I did and what teams we’re labeling as the easy wins, the fights to the finish and the upsets of the week. Check it out!
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The New York Giants sit atop of the NFC East in Week 7. They also find themselves with a much needed Bye Week. Fret not, football fans. There is still plenty of pigskin to go around this week! There are some great games that you won’t want to miss…and some that you would probably prefer to watch paint dry instead.

We hop over the fence to see what teams the experts over at ESPN are picking this week, as well as gawk at their results from last week. Naturally, we’ll be doing the same for yours truly. Each week, I go head to head with the big boys and live to tell about it. How did I do last week? Who am I picking this week? Come on in and take a look at my breakdown and analysis for each game.
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