The discussion has been all but put to bed on whether Eli Manning is an elite quarterback in Tom Brady’s class. Yet each time Eli completed a game, this season, his comments from the Michael Kay Show were again raised and either confirmed or questioned.
Despite all the controversy, this was truly a question of class intervals. There are some who complain about statistical research, and its presentation, because you can make the data say whatever you want. While this is not entirely true, data can be manipulated to support a particular perspective. If Eli Manning was even just the tenth best quarterback in the league, you could have quarterback rating or attempts and completion data arranged so that Eli and Brady are in the same category. The space between them might be large, but data can be arranged so that they are in one grouping and there is at least one other grouping containing quarterbacks who rank lower than Eli.
As it turns out, the data probably does not need to be manipulated so drastically but, its important to understand that, even at the beginning of the season when the interview occurred, Eli wasn’t just speaking to speak. He truly could place himself at the top of the class.
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