Manning’s Place is on Sideline (For Now)

Eli's coming, or at least that's how the song goes.

The burning question in New York City -- aside from "Do I still have time to get out of town before the Republican Convention starts?" -- is "Eli or Kurt?"

If the New York Giants' coaching staff is smart -- not an automatic assumption by any means -- Eli Manning's arrival in the starting lineup won't be until next year.

Yeah, he outperformed veteran Kurt Warner during the first two weeks of the preseason, but that's no indication of how the rookie will do when the games start to count.

I'm not one of those guys who typically makes it a habit to defend the old clichés like "Rookie quarterbacks can't succeed in the NFL," but sometimes -- not often, and usually by accident -- even stale old wisdom has the advantage of being correct.

I know what you're thinking: "What about Dan Marino?"

Okay, what about Dan Marino.

He did have the best season any of rookie quarterback this side of Sammy Baugh, but remember, Don Shula waited until mid-season before throwing Parkview Avenue Dan into the breach.

By the way, I lived for a year within a block of both Marino's childhood home and the baseball field that was named in his honor. Yeah, that's right. A baseball field, now called Marino Field. Of course, back then, in the early days of his pro career, it was called Frazier Field.

None of that has anything to do with the story, but in a future column, I'll talk about how I drive past Joe Namath's boyhood home at least once a month.

Now, back to the program.

The fact that everybody remembers Marino as a rookie quarterback who actually succeeded is an indication that he is an exception that proves the rule. (Two clichés in one column? Dear me, I must be getting lazy.)

It's far more common for quarterbacks -- even great ones -- to have inauspicious beginnings. John Elway once lined up behind the guard in his rookie year. John Unitas lost his first game when he threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown. Terry Bradshaw threw 24 interceptions and 7 touchdown passes the season after he was selected first overall in the NFL draft.

The argument in favor of Eli Manning at this point is that times are different now. College quarterbacks play in more sophisticated systems these days. When Billie Joe All-American (or Eli Manning, in this case) opens his NFL playbook, he's already seen most of the stuff in it.

That's all true, but that just decreases the time a college quarterback needs to adjust to the NFL; it doesn't eliminate the adjustment.

Manning, when he gets his opportunity, will see pretty much the same types of defenses he saw in college and he'll call pretty much the same plays -- only the terminology has changed. But one thing will be radically different.

Sometime this fall, some poor benighted sports columnist or sports talk show host will muse on how the San Diego Chargers would fare if they play the University of Southern California. That's because it's a yearly ritual to ask what would happen if the best college team played the worst pro team.

I'll tell you, free of charge, what would happen if the Chargers would play the Trojans.

The Chargers would win. By at least three touchdowns, because the worst pro team isn't just better than the best college team; it's a lot better.

Think about it for a second. How many pro players are there on USC's current roster?

Maybe a dozen, and that's being generous. Meanwhile, there are 53 pro players on San Diego's roster.

True, calling some of San Diego's players professionals is being a little generous. But the Chargers still have at least 40 players who are better than almost everyone wearing Trojan red.

The biggest difference between the NFL and the college ranks is speed, which poses a bigger problem for quarterbacks than for any other position.

Defensive backs can disguise their coverages longer in the pros because they can get to their zones a lot faster than their college counterparts. They can cover more ground once the ball is in the air, which means the quarterback has to throw with more precision.

And, because the defensive linemen are quicker, quarterbacks have less time to make their decisions.

It takes time to make that adjustment.

In fact, more quarterbacks -- Warner and the Steelers' Tommy Maddox -- have, with some success, made the immediate transition from Arena ball to the NFL in the past five years than from college to the pros.

That's not a coincidence. With the smaller field, things happen even more quickly in Arena ball than they do in the NFL.

But Manning doesn't have the benefit of Arena ball experience. So it ill-serves both him and the Giants to throw him into a whirlwind that could overwhelm him.

And New York has, in Warner, a proven quarterback who can keep his seat warm for a year -- or eight games -- until Manning is ready to face the maelstrom.