THE RUNDOWN: I WOULD LOVE TO BET AGAINST THIS GUY

by Davey, Blown Coverage

The Rundown is a weekly "gambling" column based on and inspired by the time I spent working at sports books.

Some people out there are very bright. They can do basic pre-school math, they have something that resembles logic and and they make rational decisions that usually end up being right on the money.

Folk like this usually are pretty good gamblers as well. They take trends, stats and other stuff into consideration and get some sort of advantage out of it.

Then you have someone like Sportsline senior NFL writer Pete Prisco. He's basically the exact opposite. He takes fact and logic and violates them with a cheese grater. Prisco is one of my favorite targets over at Blown Coverage and this is exactly why.

I know that no one is perfect and that people are going to be wrong from time to time, but Pete takes wrong and has a violent sexual romp with it. He embraces it. He takes it on dates. He buys it fancy dresses. He brings flowers for it.

After Eli Manning put up his epic stinker against the NFL's worst pass defense last Sunday, everyone started to pile on Manning and you can definitely understand why. But not to worry Eli, Pete's here to defend your below average career numbers.

"Let the piling on Eli Manning begin.

He's an easy target. And he does deserve plenty of ripping for his horrid play in the New York Giants' 41-17 loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday. There's no way to sugarcoat the fact that he stunk it up in throwing four picks, three returned for touchdowns.

But don't rush to judgment and say Manning can't play. That's what the New York media wants to do. That's what some national writers want to do."

See, first of all, no one is rushing to any judgment. Manning has played in 52 regular season games and two post-season games. He's been New York's starter since 2004. No one is rushing to a judgment when said opinion has been formed after 52 regular season games.

Manning's career record as a starter is 27-23. He's 0-2 in the play-offs and even though New York went 11-5 in '05, they had that epic 2-6 slide to end last season and this season they've basically sucked against the good teams and got a bunch of their wins against the bottom feeders.

"Look at the facts. Counting this season, he has thrown 63 touchdowns passes in his past 42 starts. You can't do that if you aren't any good. He has thrown 46 interceptions, which isn't good, and some of that is because he tends to get jumpy in the pocket because his offensive line struggles."

The patented Prisco contradiction. He's good, but he does things that are obviously not good.

"The Giants' tackles aren't very good. That's a recipe for pass rushers in your face and Manning simply will not take the sack.

He throws it instead. He has to learn to take the sack.

But let's not bury the kid. He's completing 60.4 percent of his passes this season, which is a career high. A week ago against the Lions, he was 23 of 34 for 283 yards, one touchdown and one interception. He had a passer rating of 100.7 and the media was singing his praises."

Actually, he's completing 58.5 % of his passes this season. He's got 16 Td's and 15 picks so far and a qb-rating of 75, right around his career average.

Now, those numbers are pretty simplistic, so I'm going to get a little geeky on you guys. The Football Outsiders rank their quarterbacks using DPAR (points scored by a qb compared to a replacemt level guy) and DVOA (average value per play).

The simple version: DPAR means a quarterback with more total value. DVOA means a quarterback with more value per play. Easy right? Good.

These are the top 10 qb's so far this season based on their DPAR and DVOA.

1. Tom Brady
2. Brett Favre
3. Derek Anderson
4. Carson Palmer
5. Tony Romo
6. Peyton Manning
7. Drew Brees
8. David Garrard
9. Jeff Garcia
10. Matthew Hasselbeck

Eli Manning comes in at number 26. Some guys that are in front of Eli on that list : Joey Harrington, Sage Rosenfels, Brodie Croyle, J.P. Losman, the benched Chad Pennington and the ghost of Daunte Culpepper.

He has a DVOA of -8.3 %. Philip Rivers, the guy who was traded for Eli and who's been having a seemingly horrible season still has a DVOA of +12.3% and ranks 12 spots ahead of Eli on that list. Make of that what you will.

"One game, one horrible game, shouldn't change the way people think about him. There are those questioning whether he's the long-term answer. Hey, has anybody looked around the league lately to see the list of guys playing?

Of course he's the long-term answer.

But he does play in New York. And his name is Manning, which means more scrutiny than most."

One game didn't make people think differently about Eli. It just basically cemented the opinions even more. Going back to those Football Outsiders rankings, Eli finished ranked 17th among quarterbacks last season behind guys like Damon Huard, Jon Kitna, Mark Brunell and Matt Leinart.

In 2005, the season that New York went 11-5, Manning ranked 18th among qb's. In his rookie season, he ranked 36th.

36, 18,17, 26. If the Giants want below average as their "long term answer," fine by me.

And yeah, let's not forget that Elisha is being below average after pouting and demanding to be traded on draft day, something that forced the Giants to give up three draft picks and Philip Rivers to get him.

But hey, Prisco's impressed by all that. Sportsline's senior NFL writer folks, showing consistency that would make Cal Ripken blush....