Last week, after the Giants had just rallied back to beat the woeful Dolphins, I strongly considered writing a column dedicated solely to Eli Manning. I was going to argue how underrated and under-appreciated Eli has been throughout his career, a sentiment anyone who has ever met me can attest I firmly believe to be true. I was also going to explain why, aside from the wunderkind Aaron Rodgers, Manning has been the most valuable player in the NFL so far this season, and I wasn't going to care who laughed at me. It would have been glorious, trust me.
The reason I didn't write it, you ask? Well, when I relayed the idea to a friend of mine, he shook his head in disgust and muttered, "You're not in New York; nobody cares about Eli Manning."
Although this realization deeply saddened me and caused me to rethink the entire column, he was undoubtedly right - at least at the time.
Boy, what a difference a week can make.
In the seven days since, not only has Kim Kardashian turned the entire world upside down by ending what seemed to be a rock solid 72-day union with rebounding guru Kris Humphries, but Eli Manning has also done the seemingly impossible. After years of being the media's preferred whipping boy, he has somehow transformed into their provisional darling. Following the Giants improbable upset win against the Patriots in Foxboro Sunday, Eli has been everywhere. Come Monday, he was the top headline on "SportsCenter," the lead story in Peter King's timeless Monday Morning Quarterback column and the main focus of Jason Cole's weekly football recap for Yahoo! Sports. For once, Eli was the story of the week.
So I should be happy, right? Well, I am. And I'm not. Let me explain.
I am exuberant because for years my stance that Eli is one of the league's best quarterbacks left me publicly ridiculed, but these arguments can now be declared victories on my behalf. I'm also happy for Eli because after seven years of enduring constant and often iniquitous criticism, the man deserves to be appreciated for the quarterback that he truly is.
The problem is, however, that the vast majority of NFL experts have no idea what type of quarterback he actually is and really never have. This week, every sportswriter in America has decided to shape his position around the question, "Is Eli elite?" because everyone knows an alluring alliterative lead is the foundation of every good argument. Never once did anyone consider if the word "elite" is even appropriate for the discussion.
Personally, I will argue to my death that Eli is a so-called "elite" quarterback in the NFL, but I also can completely understand why there is such strong opposition to the claim. The word elite has a certain connotation in the NFL, especially when being applied to quarterbacks. Every single football fan in America has a prototype of just what exactly he considers "elite" to be. An elite quarterback not only plays the game at a very high level, but does so while fitting a very specific mold, an archetype set by every elite quarterback who came before him.
Thus, we come to the biggest downfall in Eli Manning's career - he doesn't come close to fitting that mold.
Eli doesn't look like what your entire lifetime of watching football has told you an elite quarterback should. His aura doesn't make everyone around him feel inherently tranquil and secure, as they say Joe Montana's did. His physical body doesn't come across as strikingly athletic, a la Steve Young, nor as particularly menacing, like a Johnny Unitas. He doesn't have the smile or style of Tom Brady, the over-the-top charisma of Brett Favre or even the alluring deadpan humor of big brother Peyton. In essence, he does not command the attention of an entire room with his mere presence, nor would he ever even desire to do so.
That's because Eli is simply Eli, and that's all he's ever aspired to be. Sure, he could have choreographed a few more jokes into his press conferences throughout the years, or made it a point to berate his teammates on the sidelines, thus garnering praise from the media with words like "charisma" and "tenacity," but Eli has never believed all that to be necessary. And while for you, this may bar him from ever being considered "elite," for me, it is all I could ever have asked him to be. Just Eli.
He is the Eli who has legions of both past and present teammates who resolutely swear by him. The Eli who week in and week out cares only about winning. The Eli who, no matter what has previously transpired in a game, will never waver in the belief that his next drive, his next throw, will be perfect. The Eli who continually performs at his highest possible level when the chips have firmly piled up against him, routinely shocking the world in the process.
That's the Eli I love, the Eli I have always loved. I have believed in his skill and intangibles for years, as any intelligent Giants fan has. Now, as the rest of the sports world finally starts to give Eli the respect and attention he deserves, I urge you not to force him into being something that he is not, nor attempt to characterize and compare him amongst his contemporaries.
He is simply Eli - nothing more and nothing less - and that's more than good enough for me.
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