New York Giants: Eli Manning an MVP candidate for 2017?

New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning may be more than just a sleeper candidate to win the NFL MVP award for the 2017 season.

You’ll rarely hear New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning mentioned as an MVP candidate unless he is on the verge of leading a fourth-quarter rally late in a Super Bowl contest. Unlike older brother Peyton, Eli does not set NFL passing records on the regular. The younger Manning isn’t a fantasy football icon as are the likes of Matt Ryan, Cam Newton, Ben Roethlisberger or even Tom Brady when Brady isn’t serving a four-game suspension for (allegedly) deflating footballs.

Don’t look now, but we may be eyeing the perfect storm for a sneaky Manning MVP campaign, one that realistically could end with the veteran and two-time Super Bowl champion hoisting a total of three trophies come February 2018 if everything falls into place and the Giants end up being as good as advertised.

For starters, Manning has thrived playing underneath current head coach Ben McAdoo since McAdoo joined up with the Giants as the team’s offensive coordinator before the start of the 2014 season. Over the past three years, Manning has, on average, completed 62.9 percent of his pass attempts, roughly three points higher than his career average. He’s thrown a total of 91 touchdowns over that period of time.

Sure, Manning has flirted with averaging an interception per contest since 2014, but such turnovers are forgivable so long as the Giants win more often than they lose.

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Perhaps just as promising as Manning’s positive stats from the past few seasons is that he did not appear to be bothered by the “dead arm” syndrome that seemingly plagued him late in seasons during portions of his career. In fact, Manning seemed to be gaining momentum up through the end of the first half of New York’s playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers last January.

At 36 years old, Manning is theoretically closer to a retirement press conference than his physical prime, but there’s no reason to believe his body will betray him anytime soon. Manning is currently the NFL’s ironman who hasn’t missed a start since taking over as signal-caller for the Giants during the fall of 2004. So long as his offensive line isn’t a sieve later this year, Manning should be able to survive another season relatively unscathed.

The biggest reason you may want to consider taking a flier on a “Manning for MVP” bumper sticker this summer is, of course, the weapons scheduled to be in his arsenal. Whatever you think about the offseason activities of wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. aside, all would have to admit Beckham is, at absolute worst, a top-five player at the position. It’d be a disappointment if Beckham ended the season with only 90 catches and ten touchdowns these days.

The Giants added veteran wideout Brandon Marshall to the mix via free agency earlier this year. Marshall, who turned 33 years old this past March, will probably never again be the player of old, but pairing the 6-4 target up with Beckham in any offense should make for nightmare match-ups for just about every secondary in the NFL.