Thanks, Eli.
And I know I am speaking for all Giants fans, including the ones who agree that the time has finally come for you to hand the ball over to young Daniel Jones.
There aren’t enough words and my bosses cannot possibly give me enough space to thank you enough for all the memories, for all you did for Wellington Mara’s franchise and for Blue York, for what you have meant to every single person inside and around 1925 Giants Drive whose lives you touched with your class and grace and dignity. Who felt more than a tinge of sadness Tuesday when the news of your passing the torch exploded through the Quest Diagnostics Center.
If anyone epitomized Once A Giant, Always A Giant, it was you.
You will still be wearing your No. 10 every game day, but the sight of you on the sidelines now will be jarring, because we have never seen you on the sidelines for a home game since Nov. 7, 2004, at Giants Stadium, when you watched Kurt Warner.
You were our football Derek Jeter — only you never wanted any Farewell Tour.
John Mara remembers the late Frank Gifford as The Ultimate Giant, and he will remember you that way as well. And so will everyone else.
Even as Peyton’s Lil Brother, you were more than we could have expected.
You helped deliver two Super Bowl championships. You were the first quarterback to slay the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick dragon on Super Sunday, one time ruining the Perfect Patriots season.
You were Easy Eli, forever clutch on the field in the biggest moments, keeping that even-keeled demeanor that New York could never shake, rattle or roll. You treated every media member the same, never played favorites, never stopped facing the music when there was music to face.
You beat Brett Favre in an arctic playoff game at Lambeau Field and you beat Aaron Rodgers there too.
How you escaped out of harm’s way and launched that prayer to David Tyree that was answered in Super Bowl XLII, we’ll never know.
When Tom Coughlin needed you to throw that perfect 38-yard sideline pass toward the end of Super Bowl XLVI to Mario Manningham, you sure did.
“Thank God I had great footwork,” Manningham said afterward, “and thank God for Eli’s arm.”
How you took that ferocious licking in the 2011 NFC Championship game and kept on ticking, we’ll never know.
And that will forever be a big piece of your legacy: You were always there for your team and for your teammates and for your fans and for your city.
You suffered either a bruised at best or slightly separated shoulder at worst in the 2007 season opener in Dallas and no one — except you, of course — thought you would be ready for the home opener. They told you you would miss a month and you laughed at them.
Two years later, you were listed as day-to-day with plantar fasciitis, which caused soreness and swelling in the heel and arch area on the bottom of your foot, but your Ironman streak was not about to stop at 82.
It wouldn’t stop until it reached 210, and it stopped only because Ben McAdoo thought it was a good idea for you to start only to keep your streak alive and you said thanks but no thanks, and Geno Smith replaced you in Oakland. “Starting just to keep the streak going and knowing you won’t finish the game and have a chance to win, it is pointless to me, and it tarnishes the streak,” you said, and all of Blue York rallied to your side, and when McAdoo was gone, you were back, to everyone’s delight.
For 15-plus seasons, you were the first one in the building and the last one to leave. Not once did you cheat your franchise or your teammates or your fans. By the end of the season you will have made $235.3 million, and you will have been worth every cent.
The winning mostly stopped after Super Bowl XLVI, and too often you spent too many Sundays running for your life or bracing to be buried, but what most don’t get a chance to witness and appreciate is you standing at a postgame podium, and at your locker, every damn Monday and Wednesday, refusing to cast blame or throw anyone under the bus when it would have been so easy for you to do. You were the same guy every day, rain or shine, and even when the storms showered you with rain, you never stopped seeing the sunlight.
You wanted the Giants, you wanted New York, you were criticized for not wanting San Diego on Draft Day, and you proved then-GM Ernie Accorsi right. All the early concerns about your body language and leadership have been long forgotten.
You were not as fiery as Phil SImms, or Big Brother Peyton, but you sure bled Giant Blue, and we all witnessed exactly how much when we saw you fighting back tears in the assembly room the day Coughlin, your first and only head coach to that point, stood at the podium and stepped down, and looked down to you and told everyone: “He’s what you want a son to be made out of, because … I mean, he thinks he’s the reason … Eli, it’s not you. It’s us.”
You love this football life and everything it entails, and no one has loved being a Giant more.
You knew you had to win and win early to hold onto your job, but at 0-2 again, with that Deplorable defense and depleted wide receiver corps, it would be understandable if a part of you inside felt scapegoated. . . not that you would admit to it.
Time flies, time waits for no Mann and you are 38 now, you have a wonderful family, starting with parents Archie and Olivia, a beautiful wife and four children, and we should all hope that one day your youngest, and your only boy, 7-month-old Charlie, will be playing quarterback for the New York Giants.
You will be remembered mostly now for smiling a smile that could have stretched all the way to your New Orleans home holding that Lombardi Trophy to the sky on those unforgettable Canyon of Heroes floats. I’ll never forget you holding your little daughter Ava Frances in your arms after winning Super Bowl XLVI MVP — your second.
We watched you grow from a 23-year-old boy into a Hall of Fame quarterback and Hall of Fame Mann.
Greatest Giants quarterback of them all.
Perhaps the biggest compliment the Giants ownership and management could have given you was drafting Daniel Jones to be your successor. Not an Eli Manning clone, but the closest thing they could find to you.
Hold your head high, Eli.
You were, and always will be, The Pride of the New York Football Giants.
Thanks, Eli.