Tonight’s Patriots/Giants game will likely be the final meeting between Tom Brady and Eli Manning, signifying the end of a storied rivalry.
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning come from very different worlds.
Brady is a California boy who went to college in the Midwest; Manning was born, grew up, and attended university all in the Deep South. Brady came from humble origins and struggled in athletics throughout his childhood and adolescence; Manning was born into football royalty right from the get-go, the third member of his illustrious family to play football in the NFL.
Brady memorably was selected 199th overall in the sixth round of the 2000 Draft by a team that had spent most of its professional existence as a franchise being a perpetual loser. Manning went right when he was expected to go in the 2004 Draft – first overall – he just didn’t go where he was supposed to go, ultimately playing for the New York Giants instead of the San Diego Chargers.
The Manning family wanted Eli in a Giants uniform rather than a Chargers one because even back then – well before New York won two Super Bowl championships over Brady’s New England Patriots – the Giants were considered a winning franchise with an esteemed pedigree. The Chargers, much like the Patriots at the time, were widely-viewed as second-class.
Interestingly, the Giants and the Patriots really weren’t that different in terms of success records during the period of time between the first Super Bowl game and the arrival of Brady (and then Manning) in the league. Take a look for yourself:
New York Giants – two Super Bowl championships, three conference championships, five division championships, 10 playoff appearances
New England Patriots – zero Super Bowl championships, two conference championships, four division championships, nine playoff appearances
Obviously New York has the edge in every category, but it’s really only in Super Bowl championships that the gap between these two franchises feels so pronounced. To be fair, the Giants were winning a whole lot more division, conference, and old NFL titles in the years before the Super Bowl than the Patriots were winning in the old AFL, but that’s also a completely different era of football we’re talking about then.
What matters most is that since Brady and Manning came on the scene as professionals, the narrative around these two men as quarterbacks has vastly changed, and in many ways even reversed.
No longer is Brady considered an upstart or an underdog. He has set the bar for all NFL quarterbacks, he’s regarded as the G.O.A.T. at his position, and he’s unrivaled in winning percentage and in statistical dominance. He’s also married to a supermodel, and he’s frequently expressed his every intention to remain active in the NFL until he’s in his mid-40s.
Manning, meanwhile, has been a mixed-bag since coming into the league as the top dog in a terrific quarterback class (one that also featured Phillip Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger). He’s a two-time Super Bowl champion, but he also has just a .500 career winning percentage (exactly 117-117). He was benched in favor of Geno Smith(!) briefly in 2017, and he’s been benched again this season to pave the way for rookie sixth overall pick Daniel Jones’ ascension.
Of course, as much as anyone can pile on the praise for Brady and heap the disparagements on Eli, it’s unfair to bring up these two quarterbacks together and not mention their high-profile history against one another. Brady may have had the superior career up until this point – and that career looks to continue long after Manning’s comes to a close – but when it comes to head-to-head matchups, Manning has absolutely owned Brady.
While Brady stacked up an impressive 11-6 lifetime record against his more prominent Manning family rival (Peyton) during their time together in both regular season and postseason action, the younger Manning brother (Eli) is 3-2 against Brady in all-time meetings. On regular season results alone, that record drops to 1-2… but it’s those two postseason wins that really devastate Patriots fans to this day.
Both came in the Super Bowl obviously, spaced exactly four years apart.
The first was Super Bowl XLII, arguably the greatest upset in American professional sports history, when Manning, David Tyree, and a ferocious Giants pass-rush upended Brady’s Patriots and their dreams of a perfect 19-0 season.
As if that defeat wasn’t nightmarish enough for Bostonians, the Giants did it all over again in Super Bowl XLVI, only this time by a slightly greater margin of victory. Many of the winning ingredients from four years earlier remained the same though: Manning’s clutch decision-making, head coach Tom Coughlin’s shrewd play-calling, the Giants defense disrupting Brady’s rhythm, and New York’s receivers making some downright-miraculous catches.
And so it is that fans of New York – and/or fans of Eli Manning specifically – will always have something to hang their hat on when it comes to bar room “discussions” with their “friends” from Massachusetts.
Even if the Patriots now have more Lombardi Trophies than the Giants, even if Bill Belichick goes down as the greatest coach of all time, even if Tom Brady ends up being revered as the greatest player of all time over the likes of Jim Brown, Jerry Rice, and Lawrence Taylor… even if all those things are true, Eli Manning and the G-Men still got the best of the Pats in those two Super Bowls when it mattered most, and nothing outside the invention of a time machine can change that.
Tonight’s matchup between the Giants and the Patriots is rarer than you might think. Though these two teams have met twice in the Super Bowl now and an astonishing 29 times in the preseason, they’ve only actually met in the regular season 10 times previously… and just three times in the Brady/Manning era.
The next time New York and New England square up will probably be in 2023, unless they both somehow find their way to the title game again (not likely, given the current state of the Giants). At that point, Brady would be 46 and Manning would be 42 – which is exactly how old Brady is now.
It’s not inconceivable to imagine Brady still suiting up at 46 – even though he’s regularly stated his intention to only play until he’s 45 – but it’s crazy to think Manning would still be starting in the NFL at 42. He’s not starting now, and he’s 38. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise anyone to see Eli call it a career and retire at the end of this season.
Because of all these reasons, tonight’s contest should be viewed with interest… and even with a little bit of reverence, perhaps.
Though Manning’s successor Daniel Jones will likely play every snap at quarterback from start to finish barring injury, Manning’s very presence at Gillette Stadium on the sideline opposite his two-time Super Bowl adversary in Brady is significant. The history between these two figures is significant. Their relationship to one another – through their very-different upbringings, their very-different NFL careers, and their very-exciting head-to-head classics – is significant.
Don’t let the long odds in this game fool you. The Patriots might (and should) win this game going away over the Giants, but there’s so much more happening tonight when these two teams – and these two quarterbacks – enter the field together.
You won’t want to miss it.