Ultimate Building Blocks: NFC East

Nope,you seem to forget the games he was hurt or suspended ,and lets not play down who it was they beat without him.:)

Well, Plax did not play in 8 games last season (including the preseason), the Giants' record when he wasn't on the field was 4-4 (I didn't notice that on week 5 he didn't play). When Plax played, the team's record was 8-1; so still Plax was pretty important to Eli.

As I mentioned earlier, Eli can established himself as a great QB if he has similar or better success with the WR group he is going to be playing in 2009. Although I must say that the Giants have a strong defense and running game. He's not pulling a Tom Brady in 2006, when Brady without a true #1 wideout and a shady running game, carried the Patriots to the playoff in a competitive AFC.

Nope,you seem to forget the games he was hurt or suspended ,and lets not play down who it was they beat without him.:)

You seem to forget that after he shot himself in the leg, the Giants lost 4 outta 5 (including the playoff game against Philly) and Eli didn't throw a single TD to a WR. Don't downplay Plaxico's importance. Eli is iffy enough as it is.
Take away his security blanket and he's downright pedestrian at best, if not flat out bad.

In that 5 game stretch without Plax, Eli threw 2 TDs, 4 INTs, didn't throw for more than 200 yards in any game, and had a rating of 65.86, and most importantly only won once.

You seem to forget that after he shot himself in the leg, the Giants lost 4 outta 5 (including the playoff game against Philly) and Eli didn't throw a single TD to a WR. Don't downplay Plaxico's importance. Eli is iffy enough as it is.
Take away his security blanket and he's downright pedestrian at best, if not flat out bad.

In that 5 game stretch without Plax, Eli threw 2 TDs, 4 INTs, didn't throw for more than 200 yards in any game, and had a rating of 65.86, and most importantly only won once.I'm going to asterisk the above. Prior to Plax's suspension, but after he shot himself, Smoot got torched for a 50 yd bomb by Toomer. It was Toomers last TD catch as a Giant.

Of course, with Blache calling plays in the rain, and with Smoot trying to cover someone downfield, I understand the NFL not wanting to give Eli credit for that pass ;)

I did not say Manning belongs on the list. I said that I would not put Campbell on the list over Manning.

BTW, if I had to pick one of them, then I'd pick Eli because winning a Super Bowl is a very big deal and a qualifier IMO whereas Campbell hasn't done jack.

Since you think Campbell belongs on the list, would you like to try to explain why Redskins management tried twice to get rid of Campbell during the off-season, then?

I read the rest of the thread and I don't think your explanations are valid. I just think you are dead wrong about Ware and Samuel not belonging on that list. As for Orakpo, putting anyone on the list who hasn't played a down in the NFL is absurd.That's fair. I would, though, and I defended it.

I still think winning a SB is a bad defense for the question at hand. Since the topic is building blocks, we could theoretically just throw out all team-related achievements since you'd be taking him off the team in the hypothetical. Jason has better fundamentals, and their statistics are pretty close, so I'd go with Jason. Again, it's pretty close between the two of them, so I'm not saying DON'T go with Eli, just that, I would not.

I would not like to try to explain the inner workings of the front office. I don't suppose you would either.

The cold truth is: if you gave me only TEN NFC East players to build an expansion franchise around, just ten, Samuel and Ware would not be on mine. This is different from saying that they are/aren't among the ten best players in the division. One of them is, one of them isn't. But either way, you have to weigh the quality of the talent against the value of loading up too much talent at a single position against simply having the best ten guys.

And Orakpo was on Mosley's list as well. Maybe that doesn't make it any less absurd, but his birth date is a great reason for using him instead of Ware as the team's primary pass rusher.

I'm going to asterisk the above. Prior to Plax's suspension, but after he shot himself, Smoot got torched for a 50 yd bomb by Toomer. It was Toomers last TD catch as a Giant.

Of course, with Blache calling plays in the rain, and with Smoot trying to cover someone downfield, I understand the NFL not wanting to give Eli credit for that pass ;)

Ok, so post-suspension Eli didn't throw a TD to a WR. My point of course was that Eli was pretty miserable during the 5 game stretch that Plax was suspended.

Ok, so post-suspension Eli didn't throw a TD to a WR. My point of course was that Eli was pretty miserable during the 5 game stretch that Plax was suspended.Agreed though, less miserable and more Eli, I would say.

I don't want to take away from the fact that under the right conditions, Eli has shown he can be great, but for the most part, Eli-level wouldn't be a compliment to QBs who expect to play at a pro-bowl level. And that won't be the last rough 5 games stretch of his career, which I think is the main point here: if you are picking a building block for your franchise, you'd want to choose a player who isn't as prone to an extended length of poor play as Eli has been.

Saying that, say, Tavaris Jackson is playing like Eli Manning would be a compliment, but if Brett Favre gets compared to Eli this year, it's probably not because he's playing great. The obvious relationship between the players mentioned in this paragraph was purely unintentional.

Agreed though, less miserable and more Eli, I would say.

You can't spell miserable without eli :)

I would not like to try to explain the inner workings of the front office. I don't suppose you would either.

No, I wouldn't (I didn't think I'd be able to catch you on that one :laughing-).

Calling Samuel the best CB in the division by far is an embarrassment. He's not better than Newman. He's not better than Rogers. He's probably not even better than Corey Webster, although I'm not going to go that far. He might not be the best CB on his own team.

DeMarcus Ware is painfully overrated. There were like 4 games last year where he may or may not have been dressed, I don't know. He's not great against the run, and a lot of his 20 sacks were concentrated in games against vastly inferior competition. Oh, and when the Cowboys needed one win in their last two games to make the playoffs, Ware got one sack, in the first quarter of the first game. He's not, say, Shawne Merriman or Justin Tuck good. Not even close.


Wow... Pass the kool aid

Samuel was better than Newman last year and the year before that...
Samuel holds onto the ball so he is better then Rogers.

Ware is much better then Freeney. Freeney barely plays anymore.