Loading ...For years, and despite two championships for New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, many pundits have argued that Dallas Cowboys signal caller Tony Romo is the cream of the crop in the NFC East. However, after only a few short months with Big Blue, tight end Martellus Bennett strongly disagrees with that assertion, and anxiously awaits his time on the field with the two-time Super Bowl MVP.
"I don’t think there’s a better quarterback than him in the NFL right now," Bennett told Mike Garafolo of the Star-Ledger. "Watching his approach to the game and the way he coaches everybody up and gets everybody involved, I think he’s an unselfish quarterback, which is what you want. He throws a very catchable ball, which is always awesome. He’s a great guy, a great quarterback.
Bennett believes one of the major differences between Eli and other NFL quarterbacks is his ability to not only find the open man, but to avoid playing favorites.
"It doesn’t matter who it is or what number you are. If you’re open, he’s going to hit you," Bennett added. "Every quarterback has one or two guys they go to on most teams. But here, it’s not really like that."
The fifth-year tight end out of Texas A&M has never been a big Romo fan, and even pressed to have a quarterback competition between Jon Kitna and Romo a season ago. And although he refrained from saying anything too derogatory, his comments landed him in the dog house and possibly attributed to his abysmal 2011 season.
However, Bennett isn't the only former teammate of Romo who believes Eli is the superior quarterback, as defensive tackle Chris Canty also recently weighed in on the debate.
“Romo’s a tremendous quarterback, statistically he’s a top five quarterback, that’s undeniable,” Canty told the Dallas Morning News. “At the end of the day, in the clutch situations, he hasn’t performed as well as you would like him to. I think ultimately, that’s been the difference between their franchise and the Giants ability to be successful.”
Alas, training camp draws near and with it comes chatter about how Romo is the best all-around quarterback in the NFC East. Manning could win 50 championships, but Romo puts up great fantasy numbers and here in the age of the Internet and Madden video games, that ultimately determines your worth in the eyes of many "experts." Luckily for Manning, his fans and teammates don't care about his Madden rating, only the titles he helps bring to New York.
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- Be sure to "like" Giants 101 on Facebook and to follow Giants 101 on Twitter
- Text "oneteam" to 20222 to donate $10 to the One Team for the Lights charity initiative.
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You know, I may have to take back my longstanding view that guys like David Diehl, Chris Canty, Kenny Phillips, Mathias Kiwanuka and Osi Umeniyora tend to be the most underrated Giants.
Given that Eli Manning was ranked 31st of that player ranking and that there are still those who insist that Tony Romo and Phillip Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger and Drew Brees and Tom Brady are better quarterbacks, I think Eli has officially become the most underrated player in the NFL, much less on the Giants. But I don’t really care. Just win the rings baby (Al Davis forgot about “the rings” part).
Someday, when we look back on their careers, Giants fans will appreciate a lot of these players who are overlooked, even if just a bit, now. Just as an example, there is very little talk about Kenny Phillips except to say that he’s “almost back to where he was”. Well, IMO, he’s now among the best safeties in the NFL and a serious threat to become the best of them if he can stay healthy and have a long career. Osi gets constantly underrated even here among sophisticated fans of the team (probably because they dislike his tendency to complain about money). But he is one of the premier defensive ends in the NFL, and at this point he IS underpaid. And there’s David Diehl, who gets an enormous amount of abuse despite the fact that no quarterback builds a great career and wins two Lombardi Trophies and two MVP trophies for the Super Bowl without the protection of a pretty darn good left tackle. Diehl has had a great run out there despite his shortcomings and should be a lot better appreciated.
With the added perspective of time many will come around to recognizing what a Golden Era this is, and how many truly outstanding players are on this team and have been over the past 5-6 years. What the Giants are doing in a salary-capped era during which they haven’t cheated is about as remarkable as the Yankees’ streak in the 1990′s and the Islanders’ run earlier. This sports-crazed region hasn’t seen this kind of run often and we should all enjoy it (doubly so because it is driving Jets fans to the brink of insanity).
In fairness to the players and fans, Eli was ranked way ahead of Romo in the NFL Top 100 poll by both players and fans. And while the players were pretty far off putting Eli at #31, the fans put him at #11, which, while still too low, is at least a more reasonable assessment.
FYI, G101 was linked to from ESPN this morning: http://espn.go.com/blog/nfceast/post/_/id/40569/breakfast-links-the-kiwanuka-shuffle
Sweet.
While I appreciate Bennett’s remarks, there’s no way a player in his position can look good speaking about his ex-team. In his case the less said the better. Play … play hard … and let your performance on the field do the talking.
Bennett should benefit from a few things he will experience this year.
First, he knows he doesn’t have to deal with the Romo-to-Witten connection that definitely resulted in two best friends preferring to play pitch-and-catch even if someone else was open (and influencing Jarrett in his play-calling simply by making it clear what Tony’s favorite plays were in particular situations). You can call him paranoid, but even professional athletes have a right to get frustrated when the playing field isn’t level and he knows it is tilted away from him. That puts enormous pressure on a receiver to make a play when he gets his rare opportunities, which tends to result in just enough tightness that the possibility of a mistake rises dramatically and a negative feedback cycle gets started in which a player drops a ball or two, he and the QB and the coaches lose a bit of confidence in him, his opportunities get shrunk, and the pressure to make something of those few chances becomes even greater. That’s all gone. And he has probably been told by Eli (a FAR better leader than Tony Romo) what we have all seen: if you get open and drop a pass from Eli, he will still go back to you if you’re open the next time as long as you don’t make a habit of failing to make plays.
Second, the quality and reliability of the Giants’ wide receivers is far superior to those on the Cowboys, meaning the tight ends only have to contribute in particular circumstances and they are less focused-upon by the defense in any case. It’s just easier to create opportunities to make plays.
Third, the Giants’ tight ends are expected to be superior blockers, something Bennett definitely is, so he knows he brings to the table something the Giants value above his value as a receiver. That has to give him a great dose of confidence going into the season.
Fourth, he goes into camp knowing this is his job to lose. He has not experienced that in his NFL career. It should bring out the highest level of confidence he’s got, and from what I hear that is a HUGE benefit for this guy. A friend in Dallas who is in the music business said that there was a direct correlation between the degree to which Bennett lost confidence in his NFL future and the degree to which he worked on his music as a serious career choice. Sounds to me like this is a personality type that thrives on affirmation, which was probably in somewhat short supply on the Cowboys (who were disappointed in him) and should be available on the Giants because they have not had elite tight ends for quite some time and figure this guy could be one.
Plus he’s on a better team with a better quarterback, which never hurts.
You neglected to mention Mike Pope.
I don’t know who Bennett’s position coach in Dallas was… and I don’t much care. It’s not “homerish” to point out that Pope is widely considered to be the top teacher of TEs in the NFL today (which is probably why he’s asked to run the TE drills at the Combine every year) At any rate, it’s hardly a stretch to believe that the quality of coaching that Bennett will receive in NY will surpass that which he received in Dallas.
It will be interesting to see what improvements Pope will be able to make in Bennett’s game after three years in the NFL. We’ve certainly read a lot here and elsewhere about Bennett’s “lazy” route running. That seems like something that should be correctable with coaching… but we’ll see. However if there’s anyone who can correct it, it’s that 70 year old guy in blue sweats who will be yelling at him during practice.
Mike Pope is the best TE coach in football, period, so the fact that he was NOT happy to see Bennett weighing in at 291 is pretty serious, and looks very bad for Bennett (“besting” or not, personally, I’d pay good money just to hear Mike Pope use the word “beasting”, lol).
Pope is great, but you can’t teach heart, and you can’t always turn chicken crap into chicken salad, if Bennett doesn’t seriously commit and go all in, thats NOT going to be Popes fault, that will be all on Bennett.
The guy has talent, he has loads of talent, he just has to commit to using it to the fullest, Pope will teach him how, but at the end of the day, its still up to Bennett. Personally, I’m optimistic but a little leery, its not really fair or right to ask Pope to have to take guys and make them into professionals, they should already have that part down.