Eagles quarterback Mike Vick isn’t the only guy from the NFC East who thinks one of the rankings in the NFL’s Top 1oo list amounts to “a joke.”
Vick doesn’t like the fact that he landed at No. 70 this year, and Giants defensive end Justin Tuck doesn’t like the fact that quarterback Eli Manning came in at No. 31.
“That’s a joke,” Tuck said at Terrell Thomas’ youth football camp in California, via Kevin Patra of NFL Network. “No question. He is top five, hands down. Top five. . . .
“You win the Super Bowl, you have the season he had, you are automatically top 10,” Tuck added. “But it’s how he did it, as far as the fourth-quarter comebacks, leading a team that really didn’t have a super, superstar wide receiver at the beginning of the year. He made two guys in Hakeem [Nicks] and Victor [Cruz], he made those guys what they are now. I really feel as though he should have been a lot higher than he was.”
Eli hasn’t objected to his 2012 ranking. Left off the list entirely in 2011 possibly fueled his declaration in August that he’s an elite quarterback.
He went on to prove it, thanks possibly in part to the motivation supplied by his omission from the list. Giants fans should hope that’s the case, given that Eli’s placement at No. 31 likely will give him even more motivation to prove that the men who voted on the list -- the players themselves -- were wrong. Again.