Eli is so far superior to Big Ben that anyone who says that they prefer Ben, I immediately dismiss as someone who has no knowledge of football.
Ben had the luxury of coming up with the best team in football and had two great seasons, winning 13 games in a row in his rookie year and winning a superbowl in his second year. But, Steelers were great then and were very well coached. He also was playing behind the best OL in football. He had the worst game in the Superbowl of any qb this side of Kerry Collins in 2000, but because he has that ring on his finger, he is deemed to be great. I am not saying he is a bad player, I am just saying that as a pure passer he is not nearly as talented as Eli. And when it comes to game management and the smarts of leading a team, there is absolutely no comparison. While Rothelisberger broke in with a team that was already on its way to greatness, Eli came up with a terrible Giants team (4-12 season before the 2004 draft), he had Luke freaking Pettigout defending his blind side and, frankly took a while to grow into the job. The Giants system asks the qb to do a lot in terms of game management, changing blocking assignments, making difficult throws and reading defenses. The Steelers system puts very limited load on the qb and asks him to do only what he can do. This is not something I divined myself from studying film of the Steelers and interviewing their assistant coaches. It is something I heard Cowher say directly in a segment on Inside the NFL. The way they won a Superbowl with 2nd year qb was, in Cowher's words, "we didn't ask him to do too much. We ran the ball 60% of the time (by far most in the league) and he threw a lot of play action off of that. We put him in good situations."
Those in the Rothelisberger camp will say that the reason he had a bad game against the Giants this past Sunday was because the Giants pass rush got after him and no qb can play well under that kind of pressure. Unfortunately, that's analyzing a game by looking at the stat sheet. The fact is that the Steelers OL was not that bad. A lot of the Giants sacks were coverage sacks and came because Ben didn't pull the trigger on passes quickly enough. Obviously a team with a bad OL will give up lots of sacks, and a team with a great OL will give up few, but some qb's have the ability to make their OL look a little better or a little worse than they actually are by how they themselves play and behave in the pocket. Dan Marino comes to mind - he was sacked less frequently than other qb's, not because his OL was always great and certainly not because he was a mobile guy that evaded the rush. Rather, it was because he had great pocket awareness and had a lightning quick release to unload the ball before he got hit. I have said many times on this blog that Eli has developed a wonderful pocket awareness and moves around just enough, and gets rid of the ball quickly, sometimes off his back foot, to make his OL look better than it really is in their pass blocking assignments. The OL is a great run blocking group and very good, but not great in pass blocking. Eli with his subtle moves makes the OL pass blocking look better than it actually is. Rothelisberger is exactly the opposite as he often holds onto the ball way too long. Maybe it's because when he came up his OL was so good and he could afford to hold onto it, so he's used to that style of play. Maybe it's because he's so big and athletic, and he likes scrambling out of the pocket, running himself or even taking the hit and making the play down field. I'm not sure. But I am sure that he does not help his OL out because he tends to hold the ball too long. Giants pass rush was very disciplined yesterday and kept Ben pinned in the pocket so he couldn't escape and run. But some of the sacks were Ben's fault, not the OL.
By contrast, let's take a look at Eli and how he handled himself on the key play in the game. 4th qtr, 4th and 1 on Steelers 36. Giants down 14-9 call a time out and decide to go for it. Eli gets to the line of scrimmage, looks befuddled and takes a delay of game penalty to make it a 4th and 6. Crowd is going nuts. Aikman says - that was inexcusable. How could Eli let that happen. Deer in the headlights, bad Eli, blah, blah, blah. Well it turns out that not only was Eli not befuddled, rather, quite the contrary, he was completely in control and as cool as a cucumber. Eli explained in his post game press conference that when he got to the line of scrimmage after the time out, he saw that the Steelers were in a defense that would have completely disrupted the play that the Giants had called. Eli thought about going to an audible and changing the play, but he was afraid that with all the noise in the stadium, someone on the offense might have missed the audible and the play would not have worked. Eli coolly and correctly judged that it would have been better to take a 5 yard penalty and go for it on 4th and 6 with a play that might work at that critical juncture of the game. That's the qb that I want running my team and managing my game in the 4th qtr.
Of course it gets better. Eli and Gilbride have the guts to call the long pass play and Eli throws a perfect pass to Toomer who was behind the defense by a step. Let me emphasize - this was not a good pass; it was dead on perfect. It couldn't have been more perfect if Eli had walked down there and placed it in Toomer's hands. Toomer was about a step behind the CB and the safety was closing hard from the middle of the field. Anything less than a perfect throw and the pass falls incomplete and the Giants lose the game. That's the qb I want throwing for me in the 4th qtr of a game.
Rothelisberger has a strong arm, maybe even a tad stronger than Eli's. But he throws only two kinds of passes - a long arcing pass with plenty of air under it thrown deep down the field and a hard straight pass thrown with great velocity. He throws these well and accurately. The pass he cannot throw is the touch pass - a 20-30 yard pass that has to go over the head of a trailing defender, or over a row of linebackers that have dropped into zone coverage, and drop into the hands of the receiver, in front of the safety who may be closing from behind and giving deep help. Ben simply cannot throw this pass and Eli throws this ball perfectly.
Time will tell if I am right, but I would not trade Eli for any qb in football.
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