Lazy Sundays for Eli’s backups
With Manning set to start his 200th game in a row, there’s little for other QBs to do
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.— Having won one of the more hotly contested battles of Giants training camp, Geno Smith was busy accepting some hearty handshakes and heartfelt congratulations in front of his locker this week, a bevy of good wishes from teammates delighted to see Smith earn the opportunity to continue writing this new chapter of his NFL life.
But here’s the question no one would ask out loud: Is it really a good career move to back up Eli Manning?
Because let’s be honest — being the No. 2 quarterback of the Giants is like being the NFL’s invisible man. If history is any indication, you’re never going to see the field.
On Sunday night in Dallas, Manning is set to start his 200th consecutive regular season game, the longest active streak in the NFL and third longest of all time behind only Brett Favre and Eli’s brother Peyton.
This is his job, and he isn’t about to give it up.
“I think I played seven snaps,” said Tim Hasselbeck, Eli’s backup for the 2005 and 2006 seasons. “There are probably some that feel it’s bad for your career. I never thought of it at the time, but looking back at it, for somebody like me who wanted to play, it is bad for your career. But never. It was all positive for me. I never looked at it as a missed opportunity. I was happy to be there. He knows I was always supportive of him and I look back fondly on that. Quite honestly, I’m happy it worked out for him that he was able to win two Super Bowls. My friendship with him continues.”
Surely Smith did well to beat out incumbent Josh Johnson and join a quarterback room that includes rookie third-round draft pick Davis Webb, but both Smith and Webb are about to experience what Hasselbeck and 13 other quarterbacks have before them: Life behind Eli can be pretty idle.
Yet thanks to the quiet confidence, disarming personality and generous spirit of the NFL’s resident Ironman, life in the Giants’ quarterback room is rarely boring.
“Every practical joke I know how to play on a football team is from Eli Manning,” said Jared Lorenzen, who played behind Eli from 2005-07. “Having said that, I learned how to be a quarterback from Eli Manning.”
That Manning is set to start his 212th straight game (playoffs included) in Dallas is hardly breaking news. From the moment Tom Coughlin gave him the ball in Week 10 of his rookie season, Manning has started every game for the Giants, bridging the Coughlin regime to the Ben McAdoo one.
It is a testament to Manning’s unnatural physical stamina, to an unwavering devotion to fitness, to incomparable knowledge of his game plan and unquestionable competitive drive and yes, to an undeniable stretch of good fortune.
Yet if the 36-year-old quarterback has left a trail of anonymous backups in his wake, so too has he fostered one of the most unique fan clubs in football history, an exclusive “friends of Manning fraternity” that, after conversations with 11 of the 16 backups, seems every member is proud to have joined.
Long hours and practical jokes be
“I never looked at it as a missed opportunity. I was happy to be there.” TIM HASSELBECK FORMER BACKUP TO ELI MANNING
damned, a group that includes one Hall of Famer, two Johnsons, a fellow No. 1 overall draft pick, a handful of veteran journeyman, one unforgettable nickname and plenty of lifelong friends is one that recalls the days spent with Manning as some of the best of their football lives.
“I wish I was still backing him up six years later,” said 2010 backup Sage Rosenfels, a 10-year NFL veteran of 12 career starts whom the Giants acquired in a trade with Minnesota, where he’d spent a season backing up Brett Favre. “Of course I would have loved to play, but that was a special year. I took my football IQ seriously, and I learned more from Eli than I probably had from any other quarterback I had in my time. Some of my fondest NFL memories occurred in that year.”
Rosenfels, along with recent Hall of Fame inductee Kurt Warner, Anthony Wright (2007), the Josh Johnson and one-time Peyton Manning backup Curtis Painter, spent only one season with the Giants. Others, such as Ryan Nassib, Hasselbeck, Lorenzen or David Carr spent multiple seasons sharing time with Manning. Still others passed through in short stints: Jesse Palmer, comeback hopeful Rob Johnson, Andre Woodson, Rhett Bomar and Jim Sorgi.
Across their time, those men combined for 98 regular-season pass attempts. Manning, in that same span, threw 6,825.
“There were times I just wanted to go home,” Hasselbeck said. “It was late. I was going to the city. I just turned my 30-minute commute into a 90-minute commute because I stayed late to watch film with Eli. But if he was going to be in there watching tape, looking at pictures, I was going to be in there with him. What I wanted him to know was that he could trust me. I really wanted him to do well.”
Those are traits Eli values, particularly in those early years when he was the sponge, but even now as he is the water. You need a guy who wants to play, is ready to play, is good enough to play, but can be patient knowing he likely won’t play.
“I think it’s someone who is good in the meeting rooms, has ideas, is great on game day, watching from the sideline, supportive during the ups and downs, has positive feedback and also seeing the field and kind of knows when to say something and when to not say something,” Manning said recently. “You still got to be prepared for it. I want them to be prepared. If they got to get in a game, whether it’s late in a game when we have a lead or we’re down a bunch or hey, something happens and a guy’s got to fill in for a while and win some games till I get back, you still want them to go out there and do well.”
Smith, never before around a quarterback with Eli’s resume, can’t wait to play the role.
“I was in there as a rookie (with the Jets) and there was really no one there to mentor us and a lot of things we learned on the fly,” he said. “But just being in the room with Eli for a couple of months you see that there are things within the game that you can kind of manipulate if you know what the defence is doing, certain checks, always knowing the protections and what you need to be on top of. Being prepared for anything.”