Good News or Bad News: Eli Leads League in Pass Attempts

short passes have taken some of the role of runs.

It's not like the old system where he'd be in danger constantly with 5-7 step drops.

Have had byes already, too.

Tannehil, Brees, and Brady all have higher attempts per game.

our best chance to win is with the ball in his hands.

Sunday was an outlier type game, I think. If Eli had only thrown in the 30s, he'd be 10th.

the stubborn insistence on the run was taking the ball out of our best player's hands

Such as:

Average yards / pass attempt
Average yards / completion

If the above is readily available and if the data are available for multiple years, I'd guess Eli's avg yard / pass attempt went from being among the highest under Gilbride to among the lowest under McAdoo.

I think the Quarterback Rating doesn't sufficiently (if at all) factor how far the ball is in the air. I think Eli's QBR in the past has been "under inflated" (insert Brady jokes here ____) and now is probably a little over inflated.

But, the fact still remains, Giants are throwing the ball a lot.

Agreed, Eli is the strength of the team. Also agree that many of these passes are high percentage.

Interesting nonetheless. Not only are these not your father's Giants, they do not even look like my Giants anymore.

Eli stays healthy for a 3-4 more years he could hit 50,000 passing yards. Incredible.

You do what works and, even within games, it's very obvious right now that the Giants move the ball better and are a better offense when they're pass heavy.

and very low interception percentage. If you can pass a lot and still be efficient at it, that's a pretty good thing. Obviously it would be nice if we could run more effectively and not have to rely on the air so much, but when Eli's operating as well as he has been so far, not a problem to take advantage it.

Just as long as his completion percentage is high

of the time ahead or tied, it's not a big deal.

I'd love to know how many of Eli's targets are within 5 yards of the LOS... I think these short throws are in lieu of the running game.

In comment 12547670 BlackLight said:

Quote:

Sunday was an outlier type game, I think. If Eli had only thrown in the 30s, he'd be 10th.

Fantastic point! If he threw less, he wouldn't have had as many!

are bullshit. I was told several times in the past few weeks that we are absolutely tied to balance, even if that means running on passing downs just to even things up

66.5 %.

Per game stats. Eli is 4th in "attempts per game", behind Brady.

I'm still hopeful that the OL will get better as they play together and that the Giants will actually be able to run the ball.

Giants are currently 26th in league in YPG and 28th in the league in average per carry (3.6).

the weather shouldn't' be much of a factor.

In comment 12547707 Randy in CT said:

Quote:

In comment 12547670 BlackLight said: Quote: Sunday was an outlier type game, I think. If Eli had only thrown in the 30s, he'd be 10th. Fantastic point! If he threw less, he wouldn't have had as many!

I did make a fantastic point, but that wasn't it.

...as they were for the 49ers back in the day and the Packers now.

In comment 12547684 Trainmaster said:

Quote:

Such as: Average yards / pass attempt Average yards / completion If the above is readily available and if the data are available for multiple years, I'd guess Eli's avg yard / pass attempt went from being among the highest under Gilbride to among the lowest under McAdoo. I think the Quarterback Rating doesn't sufficiently (if at all) factor how far the ball is in the air. I think Eli's QBR in the past has been "under inflated" (insert Brady jokes here ____) and now is probably a little over inflated.

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He's our best player, and our second best player is a wide receiver.

In comment 12547809 Go Terps said:

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He's our best player, and our second best player is a wide receiver.

And right now our 3rd best player is probably a pass catching RB...

than Andre Williams

...news.

Symptomatic of a bad rushing attack which is third to last in the NFL at 3.6 yards per carry.

Incidentally, the top 5 teams in terms of the # of rushes per game:

Carolina
Atlanta
Cincy
Jets
Green Bay

Their combined record is a mere 22-1!!!

In comment 12547670 BlackLight said:

Quote:

Sunday was an outlier type game, I think. If Eli had only thrown in the 30s, he'd be 10th.

I'm not sure it really was an outlier game. We'll see. I say that because they weren't behind, they weren't forced to abandon the run -- and they actually ran the ball reasonably often, and were fairly effective at times. It looked like they're both using short passes to replace the running game ,and using the pass to set up the run, which is what a lot of "West Coast" teams do. We may see this continue until opposing defenses start to abandon run defense.

Which is something Coughlin would absolutely love, I'm sure.

As long as we win. Fuck balance. Fuck stats. As long as his arm doesn't bet burnt out as the season goes on, don't care.

In comment 12547939 M.S. said:

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...news. Symptomatic of a bad rushing attack which is third to last in the NFL at 3.6 yards per carry. Incidentally, the top 5 teams in terms of the # of rushes per game: Carolina Atlanta Cincy Jets Green Bay Their combined record is a mere 22-1!!!

That probably has more to do with the fact that most of those teams have been playing with leads. Off the top of my head three of those have damn good running backs.

In comment 12547663 Moondawg said:

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short passes have taken some of the role of runs. It's not like the old system where he'd be in danger constantly with 5-7 step drops.

Yep, its not a bad thing at all in this offense, in fact i prefer it.

I trust eli above all our RBs and our OL lol

its all about complementary.

Staying on schedule. Converting short-yardage third downs. Means to an end. The goal is to drive the football and score points.

Now when you are protecting a late lead, it is hard to rely on the rushing attack, other than to use the draw. And as the field shrinks as you reach the red zone, it is harder to get touchdowns if you don't run the football.

The Giants ran for a decent avg against the Niners. Only Williams, who seems to have reverted to his metal-filings-to-the-magnet running style, was stymied.

In comment 12547684 Trainmaster said:

Quote:

Such as: Average yards / pass attempt Average yards / completion If the above is readily available and if the data are available for multiple years, I'd guess Eli's avg yard / pass attempt went from being among the highest under Gilbride to among the lowest under McAdoo. I think the Quarterback Rating doesn't sufficiently (if at all) factor how far the ball is in the air. I think Eli's QBR in the past has been "under inflated" (insert Brady jokes here ____) and now is probably a little over inflated.

Both available on ProFootballReference.com. Under McAdoo he is slightly above his career averages in Y/A (two best completion %s of his career are under McAdoo), but his Y/C is below his career averages (well below this season).

I'm not sure about the statistical significance of it, but PFR also has a stat called "adjusted yards/attempt" and 2 of Eli's 4 best seasons in this area have been 2014/2015. The stat "rewards" QBs with extra yards/att on TDs and "penalizes" you with negative yards/att on INTs.

re: QBR - yards/att is only a small part of the formula. TD% and INT% are far bigger factors and the latter is the biggest reason for Eli's "sexier" QB ratings the last 2 seasons. His 2.3% INT% was the 2nd best of his career (excluding 2015) and well below the 3.4% Eli averaged under Gilbride (that 1% difference translates to 5-6 ints more under Gilbride).

Eli's TD% is also 5.0% with McAdoo vs 4.7% with Gilbride.

That said, I agree that Eli's QBR always caused him to be undervalued. Particularly when the OL was good, he would often check to running plays inside the 5 leading to "easy" rushing TDs at the expense of "easy" passing TDs which would've inflated his QBR.

Btw, QBR in my post is the "old" system, not ESPN's newer system.

The Giants suck at running the ball and saying that its just a part of McAdoo's offense almost sounds like an excuse to me.

I have to believe if Rashad Jennings wasn't averaging a paltry 3.4 ypc (which is actually worse than last season), they would run the ball more.

Sort of reminds me of the popular BBI mantra that hung around for a while - "Linebackers aren't important." It was an excuse and a free pass for the Giants and their inability to find any that were any good. That was until we actually had a good one and suddenly linebackers were relevant and important.

I expect the same shift to take place once the Giants learn how to run the ball again.

I'd say the more passes the better.

...dead on.

Quote:

Manning finished the game having completed 41-of-54 passes for 441 yards, three touchdowns and just one interception. Manning is now up to 1,417 yards passing on the season with 10 touchdowns and just two interceptions. Since McAdoo installed his quick-passing offense, Manning has thrown for 5,827 yards with a 40:16 touchdown to interception ratio over 21 regular season games.

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...your point is well taken about leads, but it has to be modified by the fact that we've had something like 4 fourth quarter leads, and yet the number of rushes per game is dismal for the Giants.

Now, one can say better RBs would allow us to run more... and run more effectively.

But IMO I think it's as much -- maybe even more -- a factor of inconsistent run blocking up front.

is somewhat noteworthy.

Eli has a great year last year and has played very well so far this year. Just keep doing what they are doing and they should be fine..

In comment 12548984 M.S. said:

Quote:

...your point is well taken about leads, but it has to be modified by the fact that we've had something like 4 fourth quarter leads, and yet the number of rushes per game is dismal for the Giants. Now, one can say better RBs would allow us to run more... and run more effectively. But IMO I think it's as much -- maybe even more -- a factor of inconsistent run blocking up front.

I'd have to defer on this...I haven't been able to watch as many other games and keep up with the rest of the league this year like I have in the past.