Comparing Andy Dalton’s Second Season to Eli Manning’s

With the Giants coming to Paul Brown Stadium on Sunday, the Bengals will face their second Manning in two weeks. Eli has blossomed into one of the better quarterbacks in the league, but it was not that long ago when he was criticized for throwing too many interceptions and many doubted he would ever become an elite quarterback.

Sound familiar?

Of course I am not saying that the younger Manning and Andy Dalton are on the same level skill-wise. Of course not. But, I was thinking about Manning’s second year playing for the Giants after he took the reins from Kurt Warner in his short stint for Big Blue. And his running back, who complained publicly about the offense and had a case of the fumbles.

Of course, Cedric Benson is no longer in Cincinnati, but the Tiki Barber parallel was too easy. The difference being that Tiki Barber could catch the football.

Just for the sake of procrastinating at work today, I looked up the two quarterbacks statistics from the second year. There were more similarities than I would have guessed, but two things set them worlds apart. I will project Dalton’s numbers this year for a full, 16-game season. First, the similarities:

	Yards	Attempts	YPA	TD	TD%	TD:INT
Manning	3,762	557	6.8	24	4.3	1.41
Dalton	4,260	570	7.5	28	4.9	1.27
	INT	INT%	YPC	4QC	GWD
Manning	17	3.1	12.8	1	2
Dalton	22	3.9	11.7	0	2

While Manning played in an offense that was considered more of a vertical attack, the yards per attempt and completion are very similar. Manning threw it less frequently, but not a big difference.

But here is where the differences come into play (other than the Giants’ 11-5 record):

	Comp%	Rating	Sacks	Sack%
Manning	52.8	75.9	28	4.8
Dalton	63.9	86.7	44	7.2