Are the Giants a Half Dozen Players Away?

Hadn't seen this anywhere, but this is a very interesting project. ESPN and PFF collaborate to rate a teams players (Elite, Good, Average, Poor) and determine how many players they are away from a championship. The Giants are purportedly 6 good players away from being championship caliber. Shockingly Graziano doesn't agree with this and thinks the rankings are too generous.

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/giants/post/_/id/41597/are-the-giants-a-half-dozen-players-away

While I would argue the Giants aren't simply 6 good players away, (which players matters in my view) it is a worthwhile effort to try and bring some comprehensive metric to the question. While most of the placements seem to be fair, I take serious issue with their ranking of Eli as average. Making matters worse, their justification for the ranking makes even less sense.

"QB Eli Manning: Manning set career highs in completion percentage (63.1) and pass attempts (601), while posting his second-highest yardage (4,410) and touchdown totals (30). So it's tempting to claim he should rate higher than average. But I think this is about right, because the Giants' new West Coast scheme didn't ask nearly as much of Manning as the old one did. He showed an encouraging ability to operate the offense, and the fact that he never misses a game obviously provides significant value to the team. But given the Giants' emphasis on the run and the short-passing game, you do wonder whether they need to continue spending 17 percent of their salary cap on the position going forward."

So where do I start. So the scheme didn't ask as much, fair enough, but do they downgrade the performance of other QBs who operate in the West Coast system? I highly doubt it.

Emphasis on the run game! Seriously? Sure they emphasized it all right, to the tune of one of the worst run offenses in the league. To argue that the run game helped Eli Manning and passing game in any way this year requires a real willingness to dispense with the facts. Don't believe your eyes, believe what we say.

On 17% of the CAP, he is the final year of his deal and everyone knows a large contract like Eli's has big balloon payments at the end. Eli will not be 17% of the cap once he gets a new contract. This is also the going rate for superbowl winning QBs, just ask Joe Flacco.

So, I fully disagree with their ranking of Eli as they seem to have cherry picked justifications to knock down his very strong season. But otherwise, I found it interesting a good reading heading into the offseason.
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