Eli Manning has been benched by the Giants, which means he may have taken his last NFL snap. As of today, he ranks 7th all-time in passing yards and 8th all-time in passing touchdowns. Manning also ranks 6th all-time in pass attempts, and his career is one of the more unusual ones in NFL history. And that’s because when a quarterback stays with one team for so long, it usually means he was one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.

Today I want to compare how Eli Manning has fared, statistically, to the rest of the NFL. Manning was the first pick in the 2004 Draft, and so I looked at all passing stats in the NFL from 2004 through week 2 of the 2019 season.

Completion Percentage: Manning has a career completion percentage of 60.3%. The entire NFL since Manning entered the league has completed 61.4% of passes.

Yards per Completion: Manning averaged 11.6 yards per completion; the NFL average since 2004 is 11.5 yards per completion.

Yards per Attempt: This, of course, is just the product of the two statistics above. But this is one of the building blocks of all passing efficiency models, and a key base stat for evaluating passers. Manning averaged 7.01 yards per attempt over his career, while the NFL has averaged 7.07 yards per attempt.

With the exception of George Blanda (who averaged 6.72 yards per attempt when the league average was 6.79, and who is in the Hall of Fame as a quarterback/kicker), every quarterback in the Pro Football Hall of Fame was above-average in yards per attempt. Currently, John Elway (7.10 Y/A when the league average was 6.90) and Troy Aikman (6.99, 6.81) are the two quarterbacks with the lowest Y/A relative to their league average.

Passing Yards per Game: Manning has averaged 241.6 passing yards per game; the NFL has averaged 239.4 passing yards per game.

So while Manning ranks 7th all-time in passing yards, he has done this based on volume. He has averaged slightly below average in terms of passing yards per attempt, and slightly above average in passing yards per game.

Touchdown Rate: Manning has a 4.49% touchdown rate, while the NFL has a 4.30% touchdown rate.

Interception Rate: Manning has a 2.99% interception rate, while the NFL has a 2.77% interception rate.

Touchdown-to-Interception Ratio: Manning has thrown 362 touchdowns to 241 interceptions, a 1.50-to-1 rate. The NFL has 11,285 passing touchdowns and 7,259 interceptions since 2004, a 1.55-to-1 rate.

So while Manning ranks 8th all-time in passing touchdowns, his TD-to-INT rate has actually been below league average over his career.

Joe Namath had a 0.79-1.00 TD/INT ratio when the league average was 0.83-to-1; he is the only quarterback in the Hall of Fame with a below-average TD/INT ratio. Troy Aikman (1.17-to-1.00, league average of 1.16-to-1.00) and Ken Stabler (0.87-to-1.00, 0.85-to-1.00) come in close, too.

Passer Rating: Manning has an 84.1 passer rating. The NFL as a whole has an 85.5 passer rating since 2004. No quarterback in the Hall of Fame has a below-average passer rating.

Sack Rate: This is, by a good measure, Manning’s best statistic. He has been sacked on only 4.8% of his dropbacks, compared to 6.3% for the rest of the league. To some extent, all of his other metrics understate how good Manning has been due to his great sack rate.

Net Yards per Attempt: This, of course, is yards per attempt but including sack data. Manning has averaged 6.34 NY/A, while the NFL has a 6.21 NY/A average. So Manning has been slightly above-average in terms of moving the ball down the field. Net Yards per Attempt is a better metric than Yards per Attempt, so it’s more impressive that Manning ranks better here than in yards per attempt.

Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt: This is our top non-proprietary measure of passing efficiency. Manning has averaged 5.91 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, which is NY/A with a 45-yard penalty for interceptions and a 20-yard bonus for touchdowns. The league as a whole has averaged 5.85 ANY/A since 2004.

Of all of these metrics, ANY/A is clearly my preferred measure of quarterback ability. That said, Manning being just barely above-average here is the most damning evaluation of his career. We have individual sack data going back to 1969, and there are 18 quarterbacks (if you include Brees, Brady, Peyton, Rodgers, and Roethlisberger) who entered the NFL since 1969 and are Hall of Famers. Here is how those quarterbacks, and Manning, fare in Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt relative to league average, through 2018:

If you want to argue that Eli Manning’s two postseason runs trump all, that is an opinion that can’t be argued. If you want to argue that being the quarterback for two Super Bowl winning teams means that Manning was a great quarterback, that is an opinion that well, you are entitled to, too. But if you want to argue that Manning was a Hall of Fame caliber — or even great — regular season quarterback because he ranks in the top 10 in passing yards and passing touchdowns, well, that one is not an opinion you can hold. Manning was Hall of Fame caliber at staying healthy, and that’s no small feat to be whisked aside. He never missed a game to injury, and that’s extraordinarily rare and impressive. But in terms of how he played during the regular season, he never was a top-3 regular season quarterback: he was above average for a few years, around average for a bunch of years, and below average for a few years. Overall, he was a pretty average regular season quarterback, at least when it comes to passing efficiency.