2015 Fantasy Football Profile - Giants QB Eli Manning

- Updated: Sunday, July 26th

Leading up to the start of the 2015 NFL season, we will post a fantasy profile and outlook for all fantasy-relevant players.

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New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning followed three consecutive top-10 fantasy finishes from 2009 through 2011 with back-to-back disappointing seasons -- QB15 (2012) and QB22 (2013).

By many counts, 2013 was Manning's worst season of his career as the full-year starter.

Not only did he lead the league with a career-worst 27 interceptions, but it was the first time since his rookie season that he threw more picks than touchdowns (18). With his lowest passer rating (69.4) since his rookie season, his completion rate (57.5 percent) and yards-per-attempt average (6.9) were also multi-year lows.

Bouncing back in 2014 with 4,410 passing yards and 30 touchdowns, both of which were the second-most of his career, Manning finished the year as a top-10 fantasy quarterback. In addition, Manning cut his interceptions nearly in half (to 14) while posting a career-high completion rate of 63.1 percent.

With the transition to a new offense and offensive coordinator, however, there were some bumps in the road early in the season for Manning and the offense.

In the first six games of the season, Manning finished as a top-12 fantasy quarterback only once. During that span, Manning averaged just 220.83 passing yards and 1.83 touchdowns per game.

Over the final 10 games, however, Eli was much more productive. Averaging 308.5 yards and 1.9 touchdowns per game, Manning finished as a weekly top-five fantasy quarterback five times. (And he had a sixth top-10 performance during that span as well.)

No quarterback had more top-five fantasy performances during that stretch than Manning, who was tied with Aaron Rodgers. Four other quarterbacks had four top-five weeks over that stretch -- Drew Brees, Russell Wilson, Tony Romo and Ryan Tannehill.

Several factors suggest improvement is in the cards for Manning heading into 2015: (1) offensive scheme continuity, (2) healthier and better weapons and (3) a stronger arm.

It's common for rookies to make big second-year jumps with a full offseason to gain a much deeper understanding of the intricacies of their team's offensive scheme. While Manning obviously isn't a rookie and the in-season improvement was a positive, his level of comfort and familiarity within Ben McAdoo's offense should be much stronger in year two.

A huge part of Manning's second-half success coincided with Odell Beckham's historic nine-game stretch to close the season. During that span, Beckham racked up 81/1,199/9 (133.22 YPG) with 90-plus yards in every game, which ties Michael Irvin for the longest streak in NFL history.

Not only did ODB miss the first four games of the season, but Victor Cruz missed the final 10 games. Both should be healthy to start the season. Along with Rueben Randle, who posted a 71/938/3 line in his age-23 season, the Giants have one of the league's better receiving corps.

In addition, Larry Donnell's 63 catches were the most by a Giants tight end since 2006 (Jeremy Shockey) and the Giants added one of the league's best receiving backs (Shane Vereen) in free agency. Vereen has 99 receptions in his past 24 games.

One other positive with Manning is improved arm strength by working with some baseball trainers in the offseason. That led to Manning overthrowing some of his receivers.

"I don't recall that ever happening," Randle said (via Newsday). "That's something we noticed when we were down at Duke working with him [in the spring], we noticed that his arm is stronger. That's exciting for us."

While the weapons are even better, there is concern with the offensive line. The Giants used the ninth-overall pick on Miami offensive tackle Ereck Flowers, who played left tackle at The U. but was projected to start on the right side as a rookie.

With the injury to Will Beatty, Flowers will need to protect Eli's blind side. The offensive scheme allows Manning to get the ball out quicker as his sacks were cut from a career-high 39 in 2013 to 28 last year. The good news is Beatty's injury isn't season-ending; he should return at some point in the middle of the year.


Fantasy Strength of Schedule: Based on the cumulative points allowed last year of the Giants' opponents this year, only Tampa and Washington have a more favorable fantasy schedule than Manning and the Giants quarterbacks. Aside from their six division matchups, the Giants face the AFC East, NFC South as well as the 49ers and Vikings.

Bottom Line: Based on ADP from Fantasy Football Calculator, Manning is currently going in Round 9 as the 12th quarterback off the board. As noted above, there are several reasons for Eli to improve upon last year's bounce-back season and he finished as the QB10. Quarterbacks like Matt Ryan (7.02), Tony Romo (7.05) and Matthew Stafford (8.05) are going ahead of him, but I expect Eli to outperform all of those QBs in 2015. Appearing on my list of 12 undervalued fantasy options in 2015, Manning offers tremendous value to those that wait on a QB in 2015.

2015 Fantasy Football Projection: (Passing) 4,680 yards; 32.6 TDs; 15.4 INTs; (Rushing) 32 yards; 0.4 TDs

- View all of our 2015 Fantasy Football Profiles
- View our full 2015 Fantasy Football Projections
- View full 2015 Fantasy Football Projections - New York Giants

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