Thank You, Eli
I didn’t know the Giants drafted Eli Manning until months after it actually happened.
My high school years in Baltimore were the period of my life least devoted to football. Living among Ravens fans and not wanting to deal with their teasing of the still fairly recent Super Bowl loss caused me to withdrawal from paying close attention to football. In Maryland it was easy to miss Giants games, we’d only get them on TV if the Redskins were playing them, they were on primetime, or the Redskins were scheduled at a different time. We could watch roughly 1/3rd of the games every year if we were lucky. So I spent most of my Sundays going through angst and depression like any good teenager should.
My New York grandparents decided to visit the summer of 2004 and I was tasked with chatting them up for several hours before my parents could get home. I don’t remember much of that conversation outside it being rather awkward since I hadn’t seen them in ten years. At some point though, it turned to football, and my grandfather mentioned he was excited to see what “this Manning brother we drafted could do”. I didn’t know Peyton had a brother. I barely knew who Peyton was. I barely knew our own roster at that point.
But I got intrigued and by the season’s start, I knew the story. Honestly I didn’t think much of him. I was honestly more excited the Giants had signed Kurt Warner. We had a Super Bowl winning QB on our team? Rad!
I spent Eli’s first two years giving the Giants the usual amount of high school attention. I watched enough to know he wasn’t playing that great and that fans were mad about it. We had given up a king’s ransom to draft him and out of the 3 QBs taken that first round, we got the lemon.
When I got to college in 2006 I made quick friends with the only other sports fan in the entire dorm floor (RIT is not a sports school). His enthusiasm for the Patriots helped get me back into watching the games again. My personal turning point of opinion on Eli was probably the same one as most Giants fans. When Tiki retired and decided to run his mouth the way he did and Eli responded with a sassy joke, it was like a tide had turned. The quiet doofus who threw bad picks had spoken for once, and it was a quality zinger against a guy the fanbase had now decided was a traitor. Eli was cool now. But could he win some games?
2007 was an amazing season in retrospect but at the time was filled with the same dread as seasons before it. Eli was still up and down. He hurt his shoulder early but kept playing. He did what had to be done that year and we comfortably took the 5th seed. After what many considered an upset against Tampa Bay (I don’t think it was an upset, the Giants were better than Tampa), they took down the mighty Cowboys and gained some respect.
It was enough for me at the time. All I wanted that season was to beat the Cowboys. Eli did it. Then all of a sudden he outplayed Brett Favre in Lambeau and I was watching a Super Bowl against my roommate’s undefeated Patriots and…we won. Eli won. He delivered a miracle play, a miracle drive, a miracle moment that I will never forget. It was the greatest sporting moment of my entire life.
From that day forward I didn’t care how bad Eli could play sometimes. He had delivered one of the greatest upsets in all of sports history and I felt honored to have witnessed it. But even then, they disrespected my boy. To giving all the credit to the defense, to continuously shitting on his interceptions and his face, my boy was still maligned. Then in 2011 he went and had the season of his life.
His play that year gets overshadowed in the stats by Rodgers and Brees having MVP seasons but without Eli, that 2011 win does not happen. He willed that team into the playoffs all by his own damn self, setting a record for 4th quarter comebacks. I watched him get obliterated over and over by San Francisco in the championship and he just kept getting back up like it was nothing. To this day I haven’t seen a more resilient QB performance.
His throw to Manningham on the game winning drive in Super Bowl 46 is the best throw I’ve ever seen him make. The Helmet Catch was mostly freaky luck. The Manningham throw was Eli’s greatest throw. He earned that Lombardi trophy in 2011, and don’t let anyone tell you that it was just him riding the defense again.
The team began the long slow decay soon after than win and the last half decade has largely been depressing. But despite all of that, Giants fans have not wavered in their love. Despite the interceptions, despite the losses piling up, despite the age clearly kicking in…we love Eli. He’s our boy.
I think the fact that he wasn’t constantly elite or top 3 is what made him so endearing to us. He was a perpetual underdog living in the shadow of draft expectations, of his brother, and of his contemporaries. And he still came out on top twice. Watching a dominant player be the best at his position is fun. Watching an imperfect player struggle and come out on top is inspiring. When I watched Eli play football I was inspired. I saw the value in persistence. I saw what hard work and a little good fortune could do. Eli felt like a blue collar hero. He was the guy from your neighborhood who made it and made you feel like you could too.
I don’t care if Eli makes the Hall of Fame. It honestly doesn’t even matter. He’s already a completely polarizing choice. Some think he’s a shoo-in. Others very much doubt it and don’t want him near the hall. If Eli does get picked, it won’t change anyone’s mind. The people who hate him will call it a terrible choice. The people who love him will think it was the right choice. It’ll be debated into eternity. Such is the life of a player who spent an entire career being perpetually underrated and overrated at the same time. Eli ending his career at 117-117 is perfect.
What I care about is the memories he gave me. I don’t need the Hall to pick him to somehow validate my love of him. When I think back on watching Eli play, I’m going to think of those moments that stats don’t show. I’m going to think of the escape during the helmet catch. I’m going to remember the throw to Burress, alone. I’m going to remember his goofy face when he threw a TD, and his goofy face when he threw a pick. I’m going to remember the countless comebacks and the bombs to Cruz. His hail mary to Nicks in the divisional round. Facing the wrath of the 49ers and not giving an inch. His silly direct TV commercials. His holding back tears when he was benched to end the streak. His final start, where he got to walk off with a win. The highs, the lows, and all the nonsense in-between. Eli gave Giants fans so much to treasure, and that’s why, despite his flaws, we will love the man forever. I’m not sure how I’m going to handle watching football without him.
Eli is my favorite athlete of all time and it was an honor to watch him play.
Thank you for everything, Eli.
The memories I had of the 2007 season. I hated the Giants for winning that Super Bowl. I hated everybody that rooted for the Patriots’ demise. And it was an overwhelming amount of people rooting for the Giants. I didn’t care for the Patriots, but they were in a position to finally shut up all the 72 Dolphins popping champagne shit. I was sick of it. And there was everybody else. Not wanting it to happen. So, I hated that. I was pissed off.
When the Super Bowl rematch happened. I was at my most pissed. “Watch NOW Patriots win. When there’s no meaning to it,” I yelled. When Giants won the rematch, all was forgiven. All the anger. All the hatred. Every bit of resentment and ill will I had… was washed away. I felt at peace. I still hate hearing the champagne popping every year for the 72 Dolphins. But I’ve accepted that the 72 Dolphins did something that will never be done again. Teams are too soft for that to happen. But at least 2011 kept me sane.
You are all worked up over something that NEVER HAPPENED.
One time. ONE SINGLE TIME three of the members of the ’72 Dolphins got together to drink some champagne and reminisce about the season. NO ONE associated with that team has EVER opened a bottle to celebrate an undefeated team suffering their first loss.
The champagne is more of a metaphor, and I mostly blame Chris Berman for that. My hatred started there. When everyone keeps talking about the last team to get a loss, I always go to that. Berman’s champagne popping routine. They are no different than he is. In order for me to completely let it go, everybody would need to stop talking about teams going undefeated. Accept that another perfect season is impossible, and move on.
I can see someone like Mercury Morris doing it though.
I think he gets into Canton eventually. Two brothers winning four titles between them? Taking down the 18-0 Smugs with 32 seconds left of the entire season? Doing it again four seasons later? How can he not?
Sure, he could have been better – but it could have been a damn sight worse for Noo Yawk. In an alternate universe, the draft day trade fell through, and you’d have been stuck with Ringless Rivers.
He should consider doing alternate universe comic about this. I can imagine what would happen when Rivers loses the game for the Giants in 2007-08 playoffs vs. the Cowboys.
O captain my captain
you just made me cry… and i figured out zach mettenberger went to my high school.
I love the fact that David Tyree has the Popsicle on his head for the helmet catch nod. Nice job, as a fellow Giants fan I know the roller coaster that has been our team. However, for all of his flaws Eli was the true constant and a classy guy. Those clutch Super Bowls are some of my best football memories if not the best.
2007 was the first year i really paid attention to football the entire season. I grew up watching Falcon’s games but i never cared about the rest of the league until 07. With 07 being a terrible year for Falcons fans mostly it was the Patriots run that keep me interested. I wanted them to lose so bad. 3 games come to mind that year The game against the Raven’s where Kyle Boller the backup was inches away from beating them. Week 17 where the Giants showed they could hang with them and of course the Super Bowl itself. I will never forget hollering when the helmet catch happened. Then the Burress play. It is such a wonderful memory especially of a team that isn’t my own. The Eli on the beach art is what got me to this site and that alone means i will root for him. Daniel Jones has big dorky shoes to fill.
David Tyree (#85) holding the rocket pop against his head is a nice touch.
Also, Plax with the gun in his pants.
Well this hit me in the feels waaaaaaaaaaay more than I expected. One question though, who’s above Tyree?
Mario Manningham
Didn’t Manningham wear #82 though?
I believe he spells it Luigi Roethlisbergercapicola.
I thought of you as soon as I heard the announcement.
As a younger sibling, I totally understood Eli’s burden of meeting/exceeding the expectations set by the older siblings. His doofy faces made always gave me a chuckle when prime time TV decided to show a Giants game. Despite appearing awkward to some and boring (compared to Peyton) to others, Eli is the Patriot Killer. For that the nation is forever grateful.
k, first off, I need a rollcall on the Giants present in the comic XD
Second, Peyton was always my favorite Manning but Eli is endearing in his own way. I can absolutely understand the love for him.
I heard Shaun O’Hara on the radio the other morning talking about how Eli was a “perpetual 8th grader” He meant because of the pranks he would pull during practice, but I thought of the rocket pop immediately.
Front Row – Cruz, Strahan, Coughlin, Tuck
Second row- Osi, Snee, Tyree, Plax, Bradshaw
Third row- JPP, Tynes, Manningham, O’Hara, Diehl
Fourth row- Toomer, Webster, Jacobs, Smith, Nicks
Fifth Row- Blackburn, Pierce, McKenzie, Seubert, Rolle
Basically just some of the important players in the SBs. I could have probably made the panel twice as big
Kinda surprised you didn’t.
Ultimately it came down to how much time I had. If he had announced it later (like after the SB) I probably would have stuck more in there. But I’d still have missed people
With a lot more room, you could have put the ghost of Lorenzen floating above them all. 🙂
I was actually gonna do that if I had another row but I wasn’t sure if it would be a little tasteless
I would’ve found it tasteful.
Also, Jason Seahorn. The first and last White Cornerback
Sehorn didn’t win a SB with Eli though, so he wouldn’t have fit in
Oh wow, thanks Dave!
I just finished watching the press conference. It was tough to watch him go, but I’m happy for Eli. He hoisted the Lombardi twice with the MVP each time and just like Dave said, the 2011 win was all Eli. His perseverance carried the team to an NFC Championship. I do look forward to seeing him in Canton. I’ll always miss watching him play. With Eli behind center, you never knew what could happen.
As a former resident of Marysville, OH, it makes me happy to see our local boy, Chase Blackburn represented-upper left hand corner. A former classmate of mine had her father as a longtime Giants scout.
Admit it, the choice to have the pops in the players’ left hands was done because of JPP.
It actually wasn’t, I didn’t think that far ahead and when I got to JPP I was gonna do it and then realized I had the wrong hand.
I totally respect your stance of not caring if he makes the HoF or not. He gave you, and everyone who hates the pats, some great memories. If I may ask though, is there a certain way you lean on whether he should get in or not, regardless of how little it matters to you? Some people point to the 7th all time passing yards and SB wins, others point to the turnovers and overall record. Just curious if you had any thoughts on it or not.
it’s the hall of FAME, not the hall of weighted DVOA/EPA for qualified passers (more than 10,000 attempts). he should absolutely get in.
of course i make the same argument for the baseball HOF…
stats aint nothin’ to scoff at, but cmon, he won two superbowls, including possibly the biggest SB upset ever.
Controversial take inc….
Imho he should get in on preventing 19:0 alone, the 2nd ring is just a bonus.
Yeah i know his stats are average but hes an average QB who still got 2 rings against the best QB+Coach combo the game has ever seen. Or look at it this way…. without Eli and the Giants Brady would have 8 freakin rings by now….
I think he deserves the Hall; if not for Eli, Bill and Brady would have two MORE rings, and nobody wants to live in that timeline
I remember how much hate he got in 2004 where he gets called a “primadonna” and Pat Tillman card even gets pulled out. I don’t think people ever truly gotten over what happened at draft day which hence the hate he got even before he played a down in 2004. With that said, he’s one of the few QB I know who gets blamed for defensive collapses…
He’ll be in the HOF however, just not first ballot but the honor will come eventually. Maybe second or third ballot but it’s a tough call honestly.
Another thing I want to add, I had wished Manningham would have become Eli’s main guy but it wasn’t meant to be. At least Manning to Manningham had that moment in SB 46.
Let’s not forget that the best Giants team of the Coughlin era was the 2008 team that rushed for 2,500 yards, clinched the #1 seed, and then lost to Philly in the divisional round after Plax shot himself in the leg.
That very easily could have been a 2004 QB class reunion in the Super Bowl, with an outside shot at a Giants dynasty.
RIT has become somewhat more sporty ever since Men’s and Women’s hockey joined Division I. But as a later RIT attendee, yeah you’re right. Depends on the major, but it’s not really a sporty school.
BTW, Tom Coughlin was actually the last football coach for RIT before the school decided to go “undefeated in football since the late 1970s” if you know what I mean
Today was a sad day for me because of Eli’s retirement. I’ve been following him since his high school playing days. To see him have such a fantastic career is both awesome and extremely bittersweet. It didn’t bother me when Peyton retired. He was a shell of his former self and it was needed. But Eli, I just hate to see him go. To me, he was, without a doubt, the best part of the Giants.
You hit the subject of Eli never standing out perfectly. If Eli wasn’t flawed and was never the underdog he was, he would never have been so lovable and enjoyable. In theory, for a market like New York, you’d want a dominant athlete that excels in everything imaginable. But instead, they received a man who was much more of a person than he was a player. So much more human than every other athlete you could probably think of. I will never think of Eli as a dragon who dominated everyone smaller than him, but instead he will be the humble, flawed, sometimes comical knight who slays that dragon by either sheer grit or even a little bit of magic.
Twice.
Thank you Eli.
It seems to me that Eli’s Hall of Fame case can be made by another NYC quarterback whose biggest claim to fame is a Super Bowl upset over a GOAT-candidate QB and coach combination… Joe Namath. Namath was a bit more statistically outstanding compared to his peers, but is otherwise quite similar. Both finished their careers at .500 as a starter (OK, Namath is 1 game under), both led the league in INTs multiple times, both had limited playoff experiences beyond their Super Bowl runs. Pro Football References HOF Monitor score for Eli is 82.87. Namath’s is 80.0.
Namath was, of course, a paragon of cool that Eli could never hope to be and him backing up his Super Bowl III pre-game guarantee went a long way toward fully legitimizing the AFL and the looming merger. But you want to talk defense carrying a QB to a Super Bowl upset? The Jets forced 5 Colt turnovers. Namath handed the ball to Matt Snell alone more times than he threw it. Eli, though, pulled the Namath-level upset TWICE, against a GOAT-candidate QB and Coach combo that put a lot more skins on the wall than Unitas and Shula. And while Namath is largely remembered for his guarantee coming true, Eli is remembered for his actual play on the field, for his throws to Tyree and Manningham.
Put him in the Hall.
good article on erli and the maras
https://football.realgm.com/analysis/3245/The-Shimmering-Confusion-Of-Eli-Mannings-Career
Since the Dolphins haven’t made it to a Super Bowl in my lifetime, Eli gave me what may have been one of the most indelible big game moments in in my life as a football fan.
I also spent high school away from sports, I guess I had gotten to punk rock for my beloved Dolphins. But after spending an evening with my family, grilling and tossing a football around the front yard while listening to the Dolphins lose on the radio, I kinda found my love for them again. Unfortunately this happened to be the 2007 season, the Pats weren’t losing and the Fins weren’t winning and my girlfriend at the time, who DID NOT like sports, wasn’t particularly interested in me spending 3-4 hours every Sunday watching the worst team in football (I spent a lot of that season listening on car stereos and portable radios). That perfect 72 season, which with Marino gone and the Wildcat yet to make an appearance, was currently the ONLY thing we had, was looking like it was going down hard.
So here comes the Super Bowl, it’s the world-beater Patriots against what must be the underdoggiest underdog Giants, and said GF is steadfastly not willing to watch the game because, “Your team isn’t even there, why do you care?” Instead we spend the evening watching re-runs on USA, and I am decidedly on edge throughout. Thankfully, mercifully, GF falls asleep and I sneak the remote out of her hands to watch the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter of the game on as low a volume as I can.
Fucking. Helmet. Catch. Giants win, I run outside to dance like a madman.
That girlfriend didn’t last, but my love for Eli did.
I don’t know why, but I’m stupidly amused you drew (drawed?) the guys with two rings wearing them on one finger. I know football players are huge guys with big hands, but that has to be impossible right? Supe Bowl rings are massive.
Yeah had a visit at the exhibition at Paley Center, that latest ring in particular is nearly the size of my palm. The rest are sample rings however.
I have always been indifferent to the Giants overall (as well as Manning) yet I am eternally grateful to them for denying the Pats those extra two rings.
But it wasn’t until the penis-banana photo in the courtroom skit on SNL that I realized Eli was such a lovable dorkus.
I can’t believe you forgot about JP Losman!!! I mean how could you forget the greatest QB of the 2004 draft?? For the UFL…