The question has been asked: Should he be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame?
Yes. As Drew Rosenhaus would say, "Next question!"
Come on. This is stupid. Of course Eli belongs.
He has passed for 57,023 yards. That is more than everybody except his brother Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Brett Favre, Dan Marino and Phillip Rivers. Favre and Marino are already in, Peyton becomes eligible next year, and Brady (unless you want to keep him out due to cheating) and Brees are easy choices. Rivers is a question mark, but he plans to play next season, and could provide an easier answer.
He has passed for 366 touchdowns. That is higher than everybody except the exact same 6: Brees, Brady, Peyton, Favre, Marino and Rivers.
He has a pass completion rating of 60.3 percent. That is higher than these men already in the Hall: Sammy Baugh, Sid Luckman, Otto Graham, Bob Waterfield, Norm Van Brocklin, Bobby Layne, Johnny Unitas, Y.A. Tittle, Bart Starr, Sonny Jurgensen, George Blanda, Len Dawson, Bob Griese, Fran Tarkenton, Ken Stabler, Roger Staubach, Terry Bradshaw, Dan Fouts, Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, John Elway and Warren Moon.
It's also higher than that of the man considered the best quarterback in New York football history: Joe Namath. Also, while he's not yet in the Hall, he should be, but he didn't have a higher career completion percentage than Eli, either: Phil Simms. Nor did Archie Manning.
His career passer rating is 84.1. Granted, it's a weird stat, and I don't put much stock in it. But it is higher than every one of those quarterbacks, and one more who is already in the Hall of Fame: Troy Aikman.
He led 37 regular-season game-winning drives. That's more than anybody except Peyton, Brees, Marino, Elway, Brady, Favre, Roethlisberger, Elway, Unitas and Matt Ryan.
Oh yes: He not only won 2 Super Bowls, defeating Brady and the New England Cheatriots both times, but won the Most Valuable Player in each game.
Here is the list of quarterbacks who have won at least 2 Super Bowls and are eligible for the Hall of Fame: Starr, Griese, Bradshaw, Staubach, Aikman, Jim Plunkett, Joe Montana. That's it: 7 guys. Eli, his brother Peyton Manning, Brady and Ben Roethlisberger have also done it, but they're not yet eligible: Peyton becomes eligible in next year's election, and Brady, Big Ben and (for the moment, at least officially) Eli are still active.
The only one of the 7 who isn't in is Plunkett. He should be in. And he was not a better quarterback than Eli Manning. (There's a little irony: Plunkett was one of the guys who beat Archie Manning, Eli & Peyton's father, out for the 1970 Heisman Trophy.)
If you count pre-Super Bowl NFL Championships -- and you should -- then add Van Brocklin (in), Unitas (in), Layne (in), Otto Graham (in), Tommy Thompson (out), Baugh (in), Luckman (in), Arnie Herber (in) and Ed Danowski (out -- which doesn't help Eli, because he was also a Giant).
So that's 13 out of 16 in. And if you don't know much about Thompson (1948 and '49 Eagles) and Danowski (1934 and '38), you may know that this was an era of significantly less sophisticated passing, and you would be safe in presuming that Eli was better than either of them.
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What other current players for New York Tri-State Area teams are going to their sports' Halls of Fame? It's not a long list. From the Giants, there is nobody else that's anywhere near sure. Saquon Barkley has gotten off to a very good start, but he's had just 2 years. Way too soon to tell.
From the Jets: Le'Veon Bell is a possibility, but that's mainly for what he did with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Sam Darnold? Based on what we've seen so far, he seems more Richard Todd than Joe Namath.
From the Yankees: Lots of guys with a chance, but, unlike the newly-elected Derek Jeter and last year's honoree Mariano Rivera, nobody yet obvious. It's way too soon to tell for Aaron Judge, Gleyber Torres, or any of the other "Baby Bombers." Giancarlo Stanton has 308 home runs and he just turned 30, but his injuries, and now 2 postseason failures, make him a big question mark.
Masahiro Tanaka has won 174 games by age 31, but that's counting his stats in Japan. In America alone, he doesn't get in. The newly-acquired Gerrit Cole is 94-52 with 1,336 strikeouts at age 29, but we may soon find out just how much of that was due to his talent, and how much of it was due to his Houston Astro teammates cheating.
From the Mets: Jacob deGrom is 66-49 with 1,255 strikeouts, and 1 trip to the World Series (lost). He'll be 32 in June. He's not going.
Don't tell me about his Cy Young Awards. Tim Lincecum won 2 Cy Young Awards in the National League, and he'll never make the Hall of Fame. In the American League, Denny McLain, Bret Saberhagen and Johan Santana won 2, and they'll never get in. Of course, Saberhagen and Santana wrecked their careers by going to the Mets, something deGrom doesn't have to worry about. Corey Kluber has also won 2 Cys, but he's not going to the Hall, either.
The Mets have Robinson Cano, with a .302 lifetime batting average, 2,570 hits including 324 home runs, 8 All-Star berths, 2 Gold Gloves, and a World Series ring. But he's also got a steroid cloud over him -- one that came over him after he left the Yankees. He's not getting in.
The Mets have Yoenis Cespedes, but he's only got 163 homers, 2 All-Star berths and 1 Gold Glove, and he's 34. He's not adding enough stats to get in.
And the Mets have Pete Alonso. He hit 53 home runs as a rookie, and he's only 25. But, as with Saquon Barkley, it's way too soon to tell.
From the Knicks: Don't make me laugh.
From the Nets: There's Kevin Durant, but he's hurt, hasn't yet played a game for the Nets, and at 31, he has considerably more yesterdays on the court than tomorrows. He'll get in for what he did in Oklahoma City and Oakland, but not in Brooklyn. There's Kyrie Irving, who might get in for what he did as LeBron James' "Scottie Pippen" in Cleveland, and doing something with the Nets could secure his place in Springfield. But I doubt that, in 2035, anyone is going to call him "Nets Hall-of-Famer Kyrie Irving."
From the Rangers: Henrik Lundqvist has 458 career wins as an NHL goaltender. That's more than anybody except Martin Brodeur, Patrick Roy, Roberto Luongo and Ed Belfour. He may end up passing everyone except Brodeur. His goals-against average is 2.43. There are only 10 goalies since the 1967 expansion who have a lower average, including Brodeur, but not including Roy. Of the 10, 4 are still active: Tuuka Rask, Ben Bishop, Jonathan Quick and Pekka Rinne.
He'll probably make it. But he's in his 15th season, and is 1-4 in Stanley Cup Finals games. That's not going to keep him out, but it sticks out like a sore thumb.
Chris Kreider will be 29 in April, so he has time to build up his stats, but his chances of getting in are slim. Nobody else on the team is even working his way into consideration.
From the Islanders: Who's kidding who? John Tavares has a chance, but he's been gone for a year and a half.
From the Devils: With Taylor Hall having been traded this season, nobody is close. It's far too soon to tell for Nico Hischier (21) and Jack Hughes (18).
So there it is. Since we can no longer count Eli Manning, here is the list of New York Tri-State Area athletes who are almost certainly going to their sport's Hall of Fame:
1. Henrik Lundqvist
That's it. He's all by himself. He's at the top.
UPDATE: In 2022, former Met manager Gil Hodges and former Yankee broadcaster Jim Kaat were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. That same year, while I hadn't included the New York Liberty in the original post, Swin Cash was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
In 2023, Lundqvist was, indeed, elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. So was early 1990s Islander Pierre Turgeon. That same year, 1980s Jet Joe Klecko and 2010s Jet Darrelle Revis were elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
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