When you average 3.4 yards per attempt while playing with ten other NFL players, that's not good. No matter how bad the offensive line or receivers look from inside the New York Giants bubble, Eli's stat line today looks like something a replacement level quarterback would muster in a similar circumstance. His performance can't be thrown out when he doesn't play well and then credited when he does. Otherwise, the same standard should be applied to his super bowls when he did have those other things. This isn't even an Eli thing so much as it is a fallacy perpetuated by QB bias in the media. Where there is a quarterback struggling, you can count on somebody blaming the offensive line or receivers. It's quite literally clockwork - the camera zooms in on the quarterback and you miss everything else going on, so it is presumed when he gets sacked or has nowhere to throw that he's the victim.
In saying all this, the situation in New York is really dire and I don't think even the biggest Eli critic - which isn't me - can reasonably expect him to turn things around. He's graded fairly highly on PFF and had strung together some good games in a row heading into this one. It's probably for the better that they lose and develop other options at receiver since this is a lost season.
