At 12:41 p.m. yesterday @Giants, the team’s official Twitter account, sent out a tweet announcing “Eli Manning is currently trending on Twitter.”
It qualified as big news considering the Giants quarterback’s vanilla personality. He’s not one of those athletes who uses social-networking sites to promote himself or his agenda. The only tweet he’s interested in comes out of some referee’s whistle.
The problem yesterday was most of those feeding the trending were bashing Manning for suggesting during a radio interview Tuesday on ESPN 1050 that he was in the same class as Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. You would have thought he committed some form of blasphemy. The responding tweets ranged from the unprintable to those suggesting Eli had taken too many hits to the head.
Let’s be clear. There is a Manning in the same class as Brady, but it’s Peyton, not Eli. Peyton and Brady are first-ballot Hall of Famers. Eli still has work to do to get on the ballot.
Winning another Super Bowl would certainly get Eli in the conversation, but for now he doesn’t even make my top five of most desired quarterbacks. That short list includes Peyton, Brady, Drew Brees, Aaron Rogers and Ben Roethlisberger. Mike Vick and Philip Rivers are high on the list, too, with Eli a notch below.
What can’t be taken away from Eli is beating Brady and the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII when New England was going for an unbeaten season. On the game’s biggest stage, Eli outplayed Brady, leading his team to the game-winning touchdown and capturing MVP honors. But Brady’s legacy of greatness was already cemented by then, because he had won three Super Bowls. Manning is still working on his second and until he gets it, he’ll likely remain under-appreciated the way Phil Simms was even after his brilliant performance in Pasadena.
Still, it’s curious Eli would bite on the question when asked if he belonged in the same class with Brady. Manning, who had dodged plenty of leading questions in his seven years here, thought for a few seconds before responding, “I consider myself in that class.” He went on to talk more about Brady than himself before ending by saying, “I kind of hope these next seven years of my quarterback days are my best.”
Manning wasn’t made available to the general media yesterday to elaborate, but when interviewed on WFAN, he tried to explain why he compared himself to Brady.
“What am I supposed to say? No, I don’t think so,” Manning said. “I’m trying to compete. I’m trying to be the best quarterback and try to get to a championship. That’s what I’m trying to do every year.”
Later he reiterated: “I’m hoping these next seven years are my best seven.”
The only way that happens is to win another Super Bowl and that starts by playing better than he has the last two seasons when the Giants have missed the playoffs by playing awful football in big games down the stretch. His 25 interceptions contributed to crucial defeats and the ensuing criticism has perhaps made him a bit sensitive going into this year.
It has been a tough start for all the Giants. They are being overshadowed in the division by the Eagles and they’re being overshadowed in their own city by the Jets. They’ve also been criticized for not doing enough in free agency. First GM Jerry Reese says his team will make the playoffs, and now Manning compares himself to Brady. It’s out of character. It’s as if they’re channeling their inner Jets.
Still, if Manning truly believes he’s in the same class as Brady, then he needs to prove it this year with big performances in big games and get the Giants back to the Super Bowl. Then maybe we’ll start to believe him.
george.willis@nypost.com