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On Thursday night at MetLife Stadium we were reminded of what a Hall of Fame quarterback looks like when we saw how Aaron Rodgers, even at 40, even coming back from an Achilles injury about which you may have heard, looked against the Patriots in a game that was never really in doubt. And by the way? The kind of game that Rodgers showed you as his team went to 2-1? It should be enough for the Jets this season if the rest of the team is good enough, and the coach can coach them well enough.
Rodgers isn’t in the Hall of Fame yet, but will be, obviously. It means he will join the short list of Hall of Famers who have played quarterback for the Giants or the Jets: Benny Friedman, a Giant for a short time in late ’20s and early ’30s; Y.A. Tittle and Joe Namath and Fran Tarkenton and Kurt Warner and Brett Favre.
Eli Manning, whose name was announced this week as one of 16 first-year nominees for the 2025 class, should absolutely join that list. It’s not just because of all the Hall of Famers listed above, he’s the only one who started his career and finished it here. It’s not even because he had a better career than Mr. Namath, the most famous and celebrated New York quarterback of them all.
Namath had Super Bowl III, we all know he did. His Jets became the first AFL team to beat an NFL team, beat a Baltimore Colts team that was an 18-point favorite, really helped change pro football forever, in what is still one of the most famous games of pro football ever played.
But what Eli and the Giants did in Super Bowl XLII in Glendale, Ariz., against an 18-0 Patriots team when they were a two-touchdown underdog, when Eli ran the kind of last minute, all-in drive that Namath never needed against the Colts that day in Miami, is just as famous now, as memorable and, in its own way, just as important.
The story has been told so many times before, but will be told again today because of what Eli did that night. It comes from Ernie Accorsi, the man who pulled off as important a trade as any New York sports executive ever made so that Ernie could make Eli a Giant.
Ernie was in the stands that night at what was still called University of Phoenix Stadium when the Giants got the ball and needed to go down the field for the touchdown that would keep the Patriots from going 19-0. And Ernie turned to his son and said, “If [Eli] is who I thought he was going to be, he’ll be that now.”
Eli was all that, all the way down the field, out of Richard Seymour’s grasp and somehow getting the ball to David Tyree, who somehow pinned the ball to his helmet before it hit the ground, in as iconic a moment as any Super Bowl ever had. Eli was all that until he finally threw one to Plaxico Burress in the left corner of the end zone and the Giants had beaten the Patriots, 17-14, for what John Mara a few minutes later would call the greatest victory in the history of the New York Giants.
In his own way, No. 10 was as great a Giant as they ever had, tough and durable and starting all those consecutive games once Tom Coughlin gave him the ball, 210 consecutive games between 2004 and 2017.
People will point to the fact that his all-time win-loss record was 236-234, or that his completion percentage, for his career, was just a tick over 60%. Or that he only threw 30 or more touchdown passes three times in his career. But you don’t measure his importance to his team and in his sport — or his greatness — by numbers alone. If you did that with Namath, even with Super Bowl III on his resume, he never would have gotten near Canton, Ohio after a career that saw him end up with more interceptions than touchdown passes.
Namath won one Super Bowl. Rodgers has one won, at least so far. Favre won one. Eli won two. The only quarterback with two Super Bowl titles not in the Hall of Fame is Jim Plunkett, who won two with the Raiders. Plunkett did not come close to having the kind of career that Eli did.
He beat Bill Belichick, the most successful coach in NFL history, and Tom Brady, the best quarterback of them all, twice in their sport’s biggest game. And did it that first time in Glendale when the Belichick-Brady Patriots were trying to become the first team since the old Dolphins to go through an entire NFL season undefeated, and on the threshold of being called the greatest team of them all.
Eli’s brother Peyton, who also won two Super Bowls, went into the Pro Football Hall three years ago. Eli should join him now, in his first year as a nominee. He and Ernie and Coughlin did as much to make the Giants matter again as George Young and Bill Parcells and Phil Simms did in the 1980s. Of course he had a rather remarkable postseason resume, only winning postseason games in those two runs that ended up with the Giants winning it all. But he sure did have those two unforgettable runs. He is the New York quarterback who won twice. He did get away from Seymour and he did get it to Tyree and he finally did throw it to Plax. And when he made it back to that second Super Bowl against the Patriots, in Indianapolis, when he was asked to stand and deliver from the shadow of his goalposts, he made one of the damndest throws you will ever see down the left sideline to Mario Manningham, in stride, between two defenders.
Hall of Fame throw, once again with the money on the table. Hall of Fame quarterback, hands down and one hundred percent. The last victory of Eli’s Giants career, making it to Canton, ought to be an easy one. Maybe someday there will be another Giants quarterback like him. You just wonder when.
OHTANI IS ONE OF ONE, SEVERINO DELIVERS A GREAT COMEBACK & NEED TO TALK ABOUT BIG BLUE’S D …
We keep comparing Shohei Ohtani to Babe Ruth, because Ruth was a starting pitcher in Boston before he came to New York and basically invented the Yankees and the home run in big league baseball.
But, truly, there has never been a baseball talent like Ohtani who, in a year when he is recovering from Tommy John surgery — oh, that — has produced a season for the ages, and that means any age, including The Babe’s.
Now there is a club for him and him alone, because he has stolen 50 bases and hit more than 50 home runs in the same season.
Because Ohtani is The One, even in a sport that has Aaron Judge in it.
Or, more accurately, The Oh.
So, of course, he punctuated a regular season like this with three homers against the Marlins the other night, and 6-for-6, and 10 RBI, and four runs scored.
There was a time, after Wayne Gretzky came to the Rangers, when I was talking about him with Brian Leetch one day, and how lucky he was that he at least got to play on the same team with The Great One.
And Brian said, “I’m just happy I got to live at the same time as him.”
It is that way with Ohtani, exactly.
On nights like the other night, in a season like this, he makes the $700 million the Dodgers paid him look like a bargain.
Uh, Jazz Chisholm might need to pump the brakes just a little bit on talking about how the Yankees are going to win the World Series.
He’s not with the Marlins any longer.
We can hear him now.
Luis Severino, who so often looked like a shot case when he was still with the Yankees, has written some comeback story for himself with the Mets, hasn’t he?
The kid out of Wisconsin, Braelon Allen, could turn out to be one of the steals of the last NFL draft, right?
Nick Saban really has been terrific on College GameDay.
Now that it’s been reported that RFK Jr. had some kind of inappropriate relationship with New York magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi, I keep going back to something an old Italian grandmother I knew once said:
“If you’re born round, you don’t die square.”
I’ve been a fan of the Laver Cup from the start and have to tell you, I’m going to miss having Johnny Mac and Bjorn Borg as captains after this one.
A real good baseball question is this one:
Who needs a World Series more, the Yankees or the Dodgers?
Even though the Dodgers have won one a lot more recently than our kids from the Bronx have.
Everybody talked about Brian Daboll not having a kicker last Sunday against the Commanders after Graham (Groin-o) Gano got hurt, which meant nobody talked nearly enough about a Giants defense that couldn’t keep Jayden Daniels off the field.
Guess what?
Seven scoring drives for a rookie quarterback, whether they ended with field goals or not, felt like some sort of record number.
Finally today:
Our oldest, Christopher, celebrated a birthday this week.
So this is the boy who grew up to be such a wonderful young man, the son and brother who grew up to be husband to his wife Kim and now the father of our two grandsons.
Every time his mother and I watch how present and loving and joyfully engaged with those two little boys he is we are as proud of him as we have ever been.
And, trust me, that is saying plenty.
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