Eli Manning likes that no one is talking about the 2024 Giants yet
Retired New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning talks with Giants owner John Mara during training camp. Credit: Corey Sipkin/Corey Sipkin
Home plate at Yankee Stadium is only 20 yards or so from the pitching rubber, so Eli Manning is confident he can fit a ball into a tight window from that distance.
“I can make it,” he told Newsday, looking ahead to Sunday, when he will throw the ceremonial first pitch before a game between the Yankees and Blue Jays as part of the Giants’ celebration of their 100th season.
Just in case, though, he said, “Hopefully, I’ll get there a little early and get in the bullpen a little bit.”
This was on Monday, after Manning watched the Giants practice for the first time this training camp — timed to coincide with their first workout in full pads.
Yes, the old quarterback still follows and supports his old team, and he is bullish about what the Giants can do in 2024.
“I’m excited,” he said. “No one has great expectations for them on the outside, which is good. It’s quiet. Everybody’s talking about the Jets.”
Manning knows from preseason long shots. His 2007 Giants started the season with a victories over/under of 8.0 and were +3000 to win the Super Bowl. But win it they did.
Manning likes what he has seen from the new roster and from his successor, Daniel Jones, who is coming off a torn ACL.
“[Malik] Nabers is a playmaker, which will be good,” Manning said of the No. 6 overall pick. “I think it will be good for Daniel to have that No. 1 [receiver].
“But also, if he’s as good as we hope he is, it will open up the run game, open up some of these other receivers, get [Jalin] Hyatt, get [Darius] Slayton more one-on-one opportunities.”
Manning said he has watched the offseason “Hard Knocks” series in which it was clear the Giants tried unsuccessfully to trade up in the draft to get a quarterback.
Might that negatively affect Jones’ mindset?
“That’s part of the business,” Manning said. “Hey, we’ve all been there.” (Jones was drafted No. 6 overall in 2019 to be Manning’s eventual replacement.)
“They’re going to look at players. You’ve got to know in this business that you’ve got to keep producing. But hey, he’s here. Go out there, have a good season and earn the spot.”
Manning’s immediate task is representing the franchise Sunday in the Bronx, for a day to commemorate the Giants’ history at the original Yankee Stadium, their home from 1956-73.
It was a period during which the Giants won an NFL Championship in 1956 and reached the final game five other times, including the famed 1958 NFL title game loss to the Colts in overtime.
In addition to fans seeing the two-time Super Bowl MVP throw out the first pitch, the first 18,000 will get Eli Manning bobbleheads. “It’s a great honor to have a Yankee bobblehead,” he said.
During the game, historic Giants highlights will play on the video board and fans can take a picture with a Giants Super Bowl trophy.
Manning, who retired after the 2019 season, grew up in New Orleans without a clear favorite baseball team, although his father, Archie, was a Cardinals fan.
He recalled taking Archie to a Yankees game years ago at the original stadium and asking if he ever had been to a baseball game there before. He had not. But he had played football there.
On Oct. 8, 1972, Archie threw three touchdown passes and four interceptions as a Saint in a 45-21 loss to the Giants.
Manning, 43, has forged a busy post-playing career in media, endorsements and philanthropy that also has left time for his family, including daughters ages 13, 11 and 9 and a 5-year-old son.
“I’m doing things that I want to do, working with people that I want to work with,” he said. “It’s around sports, around topics that I’m interested in and know a lot about and around people I like working with.”
On Sunday, he will be back to throwing a ball in public, this time covering 20 yards and 6 inches, if all goes well.
Notes & quotes: Backup QB Drew Lock understood why the Giants’ first choice — as seen on “Hard Knocks” — was to keep Tyrod Taylor in that role before he left for the Jets. “Why wouldn’t you?” Lock said. “If that quarterback room functions well and everybody meshes well, that's a very good sign for your team. So I get it.” . . . LB Matt Adams was so fired up for the first practice in pads that he showed up wearing full pads to a meeting. “He had his whole gear on, so I had him stand up,” coach Brian Daboll said . . . DT Dexter Lawrence missed practice with an illness.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
