Posted by Josh Katzowitz

Eli Manning should plan to take plenty of hits (and jabs and uppercuts and left hooks to the body and right hooks to the face) for responding to a question this way about who else he would put in QB Tom Brady’s class:

"I consider myself in that class," Manning said on New York’s ESPN 1050. "And Tom Brady is a great quarterback, he's a great player and what you've seen with him is he's gotten better every year. He started off winning championships and I think he's a better quarterback now than what he was, in all honesty, when he was winning those championships.

"I think now he's grown up and gotten better every year and that's what I'm trying to do. I kind of hope these next seven years of my quarterback days are my best."

So, Manning probably will get slammed, because clearly Manning is nowhere near Brady’s class. You don’t need to break down film for a living to see that.

But other than that, I like Manning’s comments. He’s known as a guy who doesn’t say much of anything interesting to the media, so this (still relatively milquetoast) quote actually represents something special for Manning. He’s saying something relatively intriguing. The scribes who cover him should love that.

Also, if you’re a Giants fan, would you really not want your team’s quarterback to believe he’s one of the best? If Manning responded to the question in this way, “Well, you’ve got Brady and my brother and Ben Roethlisberger and etc.” and never mentioned himself, wouldn’t that be a cause for concern?

Initially, when I read this report, I planned to mock Manning. But that’s the wrong reaction. Even if he’s not a top-five quarterback right now -- and might not ever be -- I like that he thinks he is.

And even if he isn’t, isn’t he one of the best QBs who also played a fake cop on a commercial with a kick-ass fu manchu? I don’t think there’s any question about that.



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