Eli Manning and the Giants have stuck by each other for far too long.
In part because they both want him to go out with grace and on top – or as far away from Geno Smith’s 2017 start in Oakland as they possibly can get.
Nevertheless, this 2019 season could be Manning’s last in the final year of his contract. So that begs the question, if this is the end, how will Manning handle his exit from the grand stage.
Manning, 38, is scheduled to speak to the media on a conference call Monday, the first day of Giants offseason workouts.
Will he pull a Derek Jeter and announce plans to retire next January before the season, turning 2019 into a retirement tour showering him with deserved praise as a two-time Super Bowl MVP?
Will he follow Dirk Nowitzki’s lead and leave it hanging in the balance, then grab the microphone on breakup day next January and announce that by the way, this is it?
Or will Manning do neither? Will he insist that this isn’t the end at all, but a new beginning?
Knowing Manning, it wouldn’t be his style to make the season all about him. So the Jeter route is unlikely. However, Manning is not without ego, either.
He refused to play for San Diego coming out in the 2004 draft, and he refused to play the first half in Oakland for Ben McAdoo in 2017.
He is very conscious of shaping and preserving his legacy, and the Giants are, too.
So the most likely scenario, frankly, is that Manning will continue to insist he has a ton of good football remaining in his right arm and that he won’t concede 2019 is the end at all.
He and the Giants want to believe this can be a winning season, a resurgent season, and if it turns out to be, then why would Manning believe it’s time for him to hang them up?
Even if they draft a quarterback of the future on April 25, the organization insists they are following “the Kansas City model” of sitting the rookie QB for a year behind the veteran starter.
Unless Russell Wilson and the Seahawks blow through Monday’s deadline without a contract extension and GM Dave Gettleman pulls off the most shocking blockbuster of all blockbusters, it would appear Manning is more than safe.
The Giants after all traded away Odell Beckham Jr., their biggest star who had been publicly critical of Manning, choosing the quarterback over the transcendent receiver.
Manning also has to feel refreshed in some way this offseason that for the first time in many years the memorabilia scandal isn’t hovering over his head. The parties finally settled last May.
That said, Manning’s uncommon pre-game photo with his family in the end zone in last season’s Week 17 finale also was a sign that he wasn’t completely sure what this offseason held.
It obviously didn’t take long for Gettleman to determine “there really wasn’t a decision to make” on bringing back Manning. News of Gettleman’s plans were leaked, after all, before the month of January had even closed.
The last time Manning addressed the local media, though, postgame of a Week 17 home loss to Dallas on Dec. 30, the quote of the day was from his father, Archie.
“If Eli is done playing, I’m fine with it,” Archie Manning told ESPN. “But if he comes back, the Giants have got to win. They can’t go through another season like this.”
Manning then did not address the media on breakup day, an unusual move by the always-accessible franchise QB.
Presumably Manning feels the Giants are headed in the right direction, though, or else he wouldn’t still be on the team reporting for workouts. He would have hung them up already.
That would be the biggest shock of all on Monday, then, wouldn’t it? If Manning announced his retirement after all this, saying he’d reconsidered after the birth of his fourth child and first son and had realized it was time? He certainly has accomplished more than most.
Or maybe a different surprise lurks around the corner. Maybe the Giants and Manning on Monday will announce a contract extension.
Admit it: You can’t put it past them.
