THIS is where it all gets terribly interesting for Eli Manning, who is 27 years old and the toast of New York City – the way quarterbacks always used to be the toast of New York City.
If this were the ’50s, he would be patrolling Toots Shor’s old place, anchored to the famous circular bar, exchanging bon mots and one-liners with DiMaggio and Gleason and Sinatra, all the biggest stars drawn to him because he was the one with “quarterback” in the job description. If it were the ’60s, he would be holding court at Bachelors III, the wiseguys and the tourists all deferring to him because everyone knew, in a huddle or a tavern, you always deferred to the quarterback.
Instead, we are still in the opening minutes of the 21st century. Quarterbacks don’t spend as much of their times in barrooms (as Chuckin’ Charlie Conerly did), and the married ones don’t tell the world they prefer their girls blonde and their Johnnie Walker red (as Broadway Joe Namath did). But the feeling still is the same, and so is the responsibility.
The job of quarterback is still just about the greatest one there is, when things are going good, when the good times are rolling (and so is the offense), when the points are piling up and the fans are in good cheer and the victories keep mounting.
And just about the hardest one there is when, well, all of that goes the other way.
“I know myself,” Eli Manning was saying one day this past spring, when he was in New York City for an appearance. “I know I’m not going to be satisfied with what I’ve already done, because there’s still so much I want to do.”
He is 27 and he is football royalty, and all of it is on his own now, all of it is legit. He never again will be Archie’s youngest son or Peyton’s kid brother, never again will have to answer for the name on the back of his jersey, because he is now a foundation of the Manning Quarterback Dynasty, no longer just a beneficiary of it.
Now we get to find out something else about him.
The great quarterbacks, the ones that get themselves tucked onto the highest shelves, find a way to replicate that moment, that year, that ring. They do it again. Unitas. Bradshaw. Starr. Graham. Montana. Brady. They belong in a separate conversation because they were multiple winners. They didn’t win every year, not even close. Just in more than one year.
That is Manning’s newest challenge. No one will ever take away Super Bowl XLII, and no one would ever want to, because it was one of the greatest performances under pressure a quarterback ever turned in. But no matter how long the career lasts, and you suspect you’re looking at roughly 10 more years of No. 10, from now on he plays for which of history’s shelves that career will go on.
There is nothing wrong with being Joe Namath or Phil Simms, two other Super Bowl New York quarterbacks. Simms was 22-for-25 one otherworldly day in Pasadena, and probably would have done exactly what Jeff Hostetler did four years later, but we’ll never know. He got only that one team, and that one moment. It probably cost him the Hall of Fame.
Namath? He delivered on sports’ most famous guarantee in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 12, 1969, defiantly jogged off the field with his index finger stabbing the air, and never again approached who he was across four quarters that afternoon against the Baltimore Colts. He was 26 that day, a year younger than Manning, and never again won a playoff game. He did make Canton, based as much on who he was during his career as how he played during it.
A year ago, Eli Manning would have signed up to be permanently listed alongside Simms or Namath – or, for that matter, two other one-title quarterbacks named Peyton and Brett.
Now, there is so much more available to him. There is so much football waiting for him. And a legacy that can be blasted into outer space if what we saw from him last February was more prologue than peak. We have no right to expect the former. But no reason to simply accept the latter, either.