Giants’ Eli Manning Announces Retirement
Eli Manning, long time quarterback and two time Super Bowl champion and MVP, has announced his retirement from football.
It was the best of times and worst of times for the Giants during the Eli Manning era, but his legacy includes two unlikely runs to football championships and two Super Bowl MVP awards.
Of course, this past season, Eli served mostly as a back up to the new Giants quarterback Daniel Jones, but he did get an opportunity to leave on a good note, leading the Giants to a home win against the Miami Dolphins on December 15th.
Manning finished his career with a 117-117 record and had many ups and downs in his career, as any star would over a 16-year NFL season.
No one was a bigger critic of Eli than I was, especially over the last few seasons of his career when nothing seemed to go right for the Giants. But even his harshest critics have to be in awe over some of his career accomplishments.
Of course, his biggest accomplishments were those two Super Bowl wins and the MVP awards he earned in both, but there are other eye popping stats that just can't be ignored.
He made 210 straight starts, which is literally unbelievable. He ranks 6th in NFL history with 8,119 attempts and 7th in these categories... completions (4,895), yards (57,023) and touchdown passes (366), according to the Giants website.
I want to take a step back from the frustrations of Eli's last handful of seasons (the blame certainly did not lie only with him) to thank him for an amazing amount of thrills for me and all Giants fans, and I hope he enjoys his retirement and his near certain eventual trip to the NFL's Hall of Fame.