Eli Manning is calling it career. He leaves with a 118-118 regular season record as a starter, with a pair of memorable Super Bowl upsets against New England. The Giants say he’ll address the media on Friday at a press conference.
His merits as a Hall of Fame candidate can be debated. He came through with some clutch plays on the biggest stage. None more so than his unlikely completion to David Tyree on a Super Bowl winning drive against the Patriots in 2008 – one of the top few plays in NFL history.
In fantasy terms, however, Manning never ascended to greatness. He never put up numbers on par with the top quarterbacks of his era.
Manning played 16 years put never finished with top-5 numbers in a season. That’s per-game production, using standard scoring. He only finished with top-10 numbers three times. In only 6 of his 16 seasons did he put up top-15 per game numbers.
For fantasy purposes, Manning was always undermined by his lack of mobility. He also usually didn’t put up big passing numbers. In only five seasons did he throw more than 26 touchdown passes.
Instead, he was at his best in the big playoff games. Winning NFC Championship games at Green Bay and San Francisco, and going 2-0 in his Super Bowl games.
Here are his final fantasy numbers for games started. The final column – the rank – shows how he compared in those years against other quarterbacks starting at least half the time.
| ELI MANNING / PER-GAME PRODUCTION | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | St | Pass | TDP | Int | Run | TDR | FPG | Rk |
| 2004 | 7 | 140 | .86 | 1.29 | 5 | .00 | 10.9 | -- |
| 2005 | 16 | 235 | 1.50 | 1.06 | 5 | .06 | 18.8 | 6 |
| 2006 | 16 | 203 | 1.50 | 1.13 | 1 | .00 | 16.3 | 16 |
| 2007 | 16 | 209 | 1.44 | 1.25 | 4 | .06 | 17.0 | 15 |
| 2008 | 16 | 202 | 1.31 | .63 | 1 | .06 | 15.9 | 20 |
| 2009 | 16 | 251 | 1.69 | .88 | 4 | .00 | 19.7 | 12 |
| 2010 | 16 | 250 | 1.94 | 1.56 | 4 | .00 | 20.7 | 11 |
| 2011 | 16 | 308 | 1.81 | 1.00 | 1 | .06 | 23.1 | 7 |
| 2012 | 16 | 247 | 1.63 | .94 | 2 | .00 | 19.0 | 17 |
| 2013 | 16 | 239 | 1.13 | 1.69 | 2 | .00 | 16.7 | 29 |
| 2014 | 16 | 276 | 1.88 | .88 | 2 | .06 | 21.9 | 11 |
| 2015 | 16 | 277 | 2.19 | .88 | 4 | .00 | 23.0 | 8 |
| 2016 | 16 | 252 | 1.63 | 1.00 | -1 | .00 | 19.0 | 23 |
| 2017 | 15 | 231 | 1.27 | .87 | 2 | .07 | 17.2 | 24 |
| 2018 | 16 | 269 | 1.31 | .69 | 1 | .06 | 19.6 | 22 |
| 2019 | 4 | 261 | 1.50 | 1.25 | 2 | .00 | 19.3 | -- |
—Ian Allan