INDIANAPOLIS — Eli Manning’s address to the Giants last week wasn’t solely centered on committing to a business trip once the family and ticket distractions back home were eliminated.
The Post has learned Manning’s message included a powerful plea to his teammates to fully recognize — as Vince Lombardi might have said — winning the Super Bowl isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
“I’ve never lost a Super Bowl,” Manning told the Giants. “I was with my brother [Peyton] when he lost one [Super Bowl XLIV to Drew Brees and the Saints], and three months after that, that’s all he could talk about. We don’t want that feeling.”
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Three Giants, Deon Grant (Panthers), Antrel Rolle (Cardinals) and Rocky Bernard (Seahawks), have experienced the agony of Super Bowl defeat. So has Tom Brady, who has waited four years to return to a Super Bowl, and four years to try to avenge the Patriots’ XLII upset loss to Manning and the Giants.
“He spoke from the heart,” one Giants player told The Post. “Like, ‘Yeah, this is for real. We don’t want that feeling and we want to win.”
Kerry Collins is the only Giants quarterback to lose a Super Bowl (XXXV to the Ravens) and Jim Fassel is the lone Giants head coach to lose one. Bill Parcells was 2-0 and now Tom Coughlin tries to go 2-0.
Brady and Bill Belichick are 3-1 in the Super Bowl, but the one they lost haunts them to this day. Peyton Manning beat the Bears in Super Bowl XLI, but the one he lost two years ago haunts him to this day.
The ring is always the thing.
“That’s what you play for,” Grant said.
You play to hoist the Lombardi Trophy on the first Sunday in February — and to avoid the worst feeling there is in your athletic life. The feeling that tormented Peyton Manning is the last feeling Eli Manning wants to feel.