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Eli Manning’s New Deal
by Sam Monson
6/8/2009
 So Eli Manning just got paid. And $97m over 6 years is SERIOUSLY paid! In fact, it makes him the NFL’s highest earner based on average salary roughly $15.3m per year over the duration of the contract. So he’s not quite in the $100m club, but I’m guessing that’s not eating away at him
But here’s the problem. Eli Manning has in fact been a very average QB since coming into the league. Most people who recognise this will be ripping the Giants for making such a massive investment in a QB who has played at the level Eli has over the last few years. But the Diner isn’t quite so quick to jump all over them.
Eli Manning represents a unique challenge for the Giants when it came to making the decision to invest so heavily in his future. They undoubtedly recognise the fact that he has been the poorest performing of the big 3 QBs from the 2004 NFL Draft class. Both Phillip Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger have outperformed him on an annual basis. But Eli had brought the Giants a Superbowl title. Phillip Rivers has been surrounded with arguably more talent at San Diego, but hasn’t even played in a Superbowl. Eli Manning knocked off the undefeated Patriots team.
Eli Manning wasn’t even particularly good during the Giants’ Superbowl season. In fact the Giants weren’t even particularly good during their Superbowl season, but they both got hot for a 5 game stretch that ended in the TD pass to Plaxico Burress after the unforgettable David Tyree catch to keep the drive alive. Those 5 games made Eli Manning 97 million dollars.
The problem the Giants had was that the trade they made to get Eli Manning was so big and so heavily weighted towards San Diego that they needed Eli Manning to come good. If you send that much in trade value for a guy he has to become your Franchise QB and put you in a position to win a Championship. Eli Manning is unquestionably the Giants franchise QB, and he has led them to a ring. He’s done everything they wanted him to do before they sent those picks to San Diego at that point how can you not re-sign him when the contract talks roll around?
The moment Eli Manning threw that touchdown pass to Burress to shoot down the Patriots he virtually guaranteed himself a new contract with the team. It would have been incredibly difficult for them to do anything but re-sign him at that point, and likely his agent was well aware of that fact.
 The other question that factors into the negotiations is how much is the value of having a guy firmly entrenched as the Franchise QB, regardless of how well he is playing? The Giants could probably have replaced Manning with a series of journeyman QBs without suffering any dropoff in the quality of play, much in the same way the Vikings did for an extended period under Denny Smith, but the media pressure on the team to find a long-term answer and the criticism should one of those quarterbacks begin to underperform can become incredibly intense. The team buys itself a good cushion from media criticism, which in New York is as severe as it is anywhere, just from having that guy who’s been there and done it signed long-term in the prime of his career.
The play may be identical, and the chance of success the same, but investing in Eli produces a completely different perception to anybody outside looking in. Imagine taking your car and painting it bright pink. Everything inside is still the same, it still works as it did before, but suddenly everybody looking at it notices its flaws!
When the Giants traded for Eli Manning in the 2004 draft they were looking for a QB they could call a franchise QB, a guy who could lead the team for years, and a guy who could take the franchise to a Superbowl. Ernie Accorsi said to the Giants before he retired that he believed they had a Championship in that locker room, and Eli Manning proved him right. He may not be as good as they thought he would be, or as good as the other 2 quarterbacks selected highly in that draft, but he has done what the Giants wanted him to do, and so they essentially had to pay the guy.
Has one player ever earned so much with a single 5-game stretch before? $323,000 per minute of football. Now that’s making things happen when you really need to.
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