It is 10 years ago to the day when NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue stepped to the podium at the 2004 NFL Draft and announced:
“With the first pick, the San Diego Chargers select quarterback Eli Manning.”
And that is how The Day Eli Manning Became A New York Giant began at the theater at Madison Square Garden.
“I think, in a lot of cases, you’d be thrilled, and you’d be excited to get drafted,” Manning told The Post this week, recalling the moment. “Obviously my circumstances [were] a little different under kind of everything that had happened that week in stating my cause that I didn’t want to go to San Diego. I was just kind of hoping something would work out, and sooner than later — either a trade, or — and didn’t really know how the next few days, next few hours, next few weeks, months, years were going to work out after that.”
At the same time, a separate drama was unfolding in the Giants war room adjacent to the lobby of the team’s headquarters below the seating bowl of the old Giants Stadium.
[I] didn’t really know how the next few days, next few hours, next few weeks, months, years were going to work out.
- Eli Manning
The Giants had just hired Tom Coughlin to replace Jim Fassel. General manager Ernie Accorsi had fallen head over heels for the skinny quarterback at Mississippi with the unmatched bloodlines. The Chargers liked both Manning and Philip Rivers, but were going to draft Manning. If Accorsi, with the fourth pick, couldn’t swing a deal with the Chargers for Manning, he would have drafted Ben Roethlisberger.
“San Diego and [GM] A.J. Smith played it very close to the vest,” Giants co-owner John Mara, then the team’s vice president and CEO, recalled. “I think each team wanted the other one to make the call. I can remember talking to Ernie the night before the draft: ‘Have you heard from A.J., have you heard from anybody?’ And we hadn’t and went all the next morning not having heard from them.”
Manning walked on stage for the obligatory handshake from the commissioner and posed for photographers holding a No. 1 Chargers jersey. It’s safe to say he didn’t exactly look like he had just hit Plaxico Burress in the end zone at the end of Super Bowl XLII.
“Obviously, you’re very excited that you’re getting drafted, and you’re going to get an opportunity to play in the NFL,” Manning said, “and so, it is an honor that they want to select me first. That wasn’t a priority of mine. It wasn’t a goal of mine to be the first pick. Obviously, I knew who had the first pick and told ‘em I’d rather if they didn’t pick me. … I didn’t know how this whole situation was going to pan out.”
As Manning prepared for his interview with the national media in attendance, Mara and the Giants decision-makers moved to Accorsi’s office, where it was quieter and any potential trade would be consummated.
Manning fielded a congratulatory call from Chargers head coach Marty Schottenheimer.
“’Welcome aboard, we’ll figure out when we’re gonna see you or getting you out to San Diego,’” Manning recalled Schottenheimer telling him. “‘All right, Coach,’ and that was it.”
The Raiders, who would draft offensive tackle Robert Gallery at No. 2, were on the clock. For Manning, time stood still.
“Obviously it did not work that way, and San Diego came out and told them what I expressed to them. It’s an uncomfortable situation — you’re excited about being at the draft and playing in the NFL, but then you have to deal with a lot of questions, and people were kind of questioning you and what’s going on. It’s an exciting day, ‘cause you’re getting to play professional football, a dream, and something you’d worked very hard at, but it didn’t go as smoothly as you anticipate when you think [about] getting drafted to the NFL.”
The Cardinals, drafting third, took Larry Fitzgerald.
Now the Giants were on the clock.
“I think at that point, we had resigned ourself to the fact that we were just gonna take Roethlisberger,” Mara said, “and then Cleveland had offered us a trade up. I think they were going to give us a second-round pick to move up.”
The Browns were picking seventh, and would eventually move up one spot to select tight end Kellen Winslow Jr. But the Giants were holding out hope Smith would call. And sure enough, midway through the 15-minute selection period, he did.
The Giants, already offering a No. 3 pick in 2004, were willing to part with their No. 1 pick in 2005, but refused to surrender their 2004 second-round pick, which turned out to be Chris Snee.
“It went really right down to the wire, so we were trying to hold Cleveland off on that,” Mara said.
The Giants considered the offer from the Browns because they were confident Roethlisberger, who would slide to the Steelers at 11, would be available and that the Butch Davis Browns, who had signed Jeff Garcia, weren’t a threat to take Big Ben.
The Chargers then asked for a fifth-rounder.
“My first reaction was, ‘No, we’re giving them enough as it is,’” Mara said, “and I think it was my brother Frank who was in the room who said, ‘We’re not gonna lose this guy on a fifth-round draft pick.’”
Only one Mara — Wellington Mara — was against the deal, largely out of loyalty and affection for incumbent Kerry Collins. “I think we just managed to convince him that this is best for the franchise, when you have a chance to get a franchise quarterback that can put you in a position to be competitive for years and years to come, so he reluctantly went along with it,” Mara said.
I think I walked in there with a smile on my face, and they all knew right away that we’d pulled the deal off.
- John Mara
John Mara walked back into the war room, where the scouts and coaches were waiting anxiously for word.
“I think I walked in there with a smile on my face, and they all knew right away that we’d pulled the deal off,” Mara said.
Manning, meanwhile, visited briefly with his family.
“I probably did 25 minutes of interviews, got pulled off stage, was going to walk to another set of interviews, and the news came out that I was traded to the Giants, so I kind of went back and got my Giants hat, put that on and re-did those same interviews again with the same people,” he said.
Manning didn’t get the news from his father, Archie, or from big brother Peyton, or from Condon, his agent.
“A guy was leading me to each station, and all of a sudden, I remember some kid busted through some kind of double doors and yelled out: ‘Manning’s been traded to the Giants!’
“And I kinda looked over at the guy next to me who was leading me — he had the earpiece and all security — I said, ‘Have you heard this? Any truth to this?’ And he’s like, ‘I hadn’t heard it, let me check.’ Got on the walkie-talkie, he said, ‘Yup, you’ve been traded to the Giants.’
“I don’t know how this kid had inside information,” Manning said with a smile. “But I did find him later, and I signed a hat for him. But he was the first one that kind of got the word to me.”
Asked what the kid did, Manning said: “He was like a little 8-year-old kid!”
A draftnik?
“I don’t know who he was, I don’t know where he came from, I don’t know how he heard first, or what his information was,” Manning said, “but he had it.”
Manning is asked why he wanted to play in New York.
“It was never exactly the plan to play for New York,” Manning said. “It was never, ‘Hey, I want to play here, figure out a way to get here.’ I never expressed that. I kind of was rolling the dice with Oakland and Arizona, if San Diego didn’t pick me, they would have the option, and I visited with Oakland, went out there, and those things. I knew New York was at No. 4, and I think just the history of the New York Giants … the traditions, the ownership with the Mara and the Tisch family … you knew that they were about football. They’re about winning. They’re about doing everything they could do to be committed to building a great football team each and every year and having a great organization.
“So I think that was always really a wish that I’d end up in New York — I didn’t know how it would happen. I never thought about being drafted to San Diego, the Giants drafting Philip Rivers and trading us. That was never in my mind that that was a possibility.”
The Mannings were whisked by van to East Rutherford.
“Saw Coach Coughlin, talked to him, saw John Mara and the Mara family and met the Tisches as well,” Manning said. “Went out to the field, had a lot of fans in Giants Stadium, and did a little Q&A on stage. … It was exciting. It ended up being a great finish to the day, could not have worked out any better. Then I was thinking it could not have worked out any better, and still to this day, think it worked out as good as it could.”
Wellington Mara, whose nickname was “Duke,” passed away before Manning would lead his Giants to the championship in 2008.
“I know more now about the history of Wellington Mara than I did then,” Manning said. “I knew something about the Giants, but I didn’t grow up a New York Giants fan, I grew up a Saints fan and going to Saints games. … As I was thinking about the draft and who were possibilities, I started researching those teams, and knew something about the Giants and their history, but really dug into, about Wellington Mara and his importance to the history of the National Football League and his story. And even since that day I’ve been a Giant, I’ve read numerous books about him and the stories from other people, and the importance that Wellington Mara is to the success of the NFL. You see on the footballs today, it has ‘The Duke’ written on it.”
Accorsi congratulated Manning, who told him: “Thank you for bringing me here. Look forward to making you proud of that trade.”
Manning celebrated that night with dinner at the 21 Club with his bride-to-be, Abby, his parents, Peyton and his wife, Ashley, and Condon.
“It’s still one of my dad’s favorite spots, and a place he went when he would visit New York,” Manning said.
There was no celebrating when Mara watched Manning at his first minicamp practice.
Manning is asked to sum up what it has been like being quarterback of the New York Giants.
“It’s been everything that I think I would have expected,” Manning said. “It’s been a lot of fun. Winning two championships here were obviously the highlights. Football, not everything always goes exactly how you want it some years, but the organization is first-class, the fans of New York have been wonderful to me, and stayed along with me, so I appreciate them, and I’ve enjoyed living in this area, moving up here and raising my family here. It’s been a great 10 years, and it’s gone by quickly. Made a lot of great friends through the Giants organization and teammates, and a lot of great memories.”
On The Day That Changed Giants History a decade ago, Eli Manning never could have envisioned winning two Super Bowls and being MVP both times.
“When you come in to start playing quarterback, I don’t think you exactly envision how many championships you might win,” he says. “I think you kind of think about hopefully winning one, and holding up that trophy. I think that thought is always in your head as a goal, something to push you, something that you want to strive towards, but I don’t think you ever think about, when you’re just coming into this league, or before you come to the NFL, that you’ll ever get to hold two of ‘em. It’s been a special run, but obviously, when you had that feeling, it’s not something that you get satisfied and content with. You want to do it again.”
Manning is 33 now, father of two daughters, father of two Super Bowl championships.
“People could argue maybe we gave up too much,” Mara said, “but if we had to do it all over again, I’d pull the trigger in a second.”