Eli Manning does not recall ever thinking about the Hall of Fame, or bringing it up in conversations.
“Never really talked about it with my wife, really,” he told The Post.
Until recently, that is.
Eli Manning is one of 15 finalists for election into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and on Feb. 6 the Class of 2025 will be revealed in New Orleans, site of Super Bowl 2025. Manning will be there. His wife, Abby, will be there, date of arrival still up in the air.
“The only time we’ve talked about it is figuring out when she might come to New Orleans for the Super Bowl,” Manning said. “I know I got to go, and she’s asking about the Hall of Fame — ‘I want to be there if you get announced.’ That’s really about as all as it’s come up.”
At this point, there is no way to know how it will go. This is Manning’s first year on the ballot, and it figures to be a close call — needing 80 percent of the votes from the 50 members of the selection committee.
As expected from someone who is known for his cool, calm and collected demeanor, Manning is not sweating it out, though he certainly is interested to know how it turns out.
“I guess it’s different just because it’s all out of your hands, you’re not campaigning for it, you’re not trying to talk to people about it or prove your point,” Manning said. “If I get in, it will be an awesome, unbelievable few days down in New Orleans, and if I don’t, it’s not going to ruin it for me. I’m not going to be in a bad mood, I’m not going to be sulking around. Just to be included in the top 15 this year is a great honor, and so I look at all of this as positive and a fun experience.”
That New Orleans is Manning’s hometown is not lost on him.
“It would make it special, for sure,” he said.
Manning, 44, retired after the 2019 season, and his legacy is exalted in Giants lore for leading the franchise to Super Bowl victories after the 2007 and 2011 seasons. Beating Tom Brady and the Patriots twice to gain Lombardi Trophies, and being named Most Valuable Player in both of those tight, taut comeback victories is the foundation on which Manning’s Hall of Fame résumé is built.
A sheepish tone could be detected in Manning’s voice as he was asked to make his own case for enshrinement in Canton.
“It’s such a strange question just because it’s not me campaigning, it’s not me going up there and saying, ‘Hey, I deserve to be in here,’ ” he said. “I feel like this has been an argument going on for even longer than five years, of whether I’ll get in or not. You know, I’ve seen a few of the arguments, and hey, I understand both sides of it.
“I think about the things that are most special to me. Obviously championships are the goal of any player, especially from a quarterback standpoint, just because you have so much control in your hands. And the fact that we did it against the Patriots on two-minute drives to go win it, I think that was one of my strong suits as a player — stepping up in critical games and stepping up in critical moments of games, in the fourth quarter, in two-minute drives and being in those situations and the moment not being too big for me.
“And then having never missed a game to injury and the consecutive starts streak [210 games] I had, that was always important to me. Those are some of the biggest things I’m most proud of as a player.”
Those who do not view him as worthy of first-ballot entry point to his .500 won-loss record (117-117), his unexceptional touchdown-interception ratio (366-244), and his lack of All-Pro or All-Decade recognition in his 16-year stay with the Giants.
Manning was 78-57 in the regular season in his first nine years and 39-60 in his final seven years, reflecting the regression of the franchise and his own age-based limitations. He was 8-4 in the postseason and nearly flawless (15 touchdown passes, two interceptions) in winning all eight games in the 2007 and 2011 teams’ playoff runs.
“I’m not here to make excuses or make points about this,” Manning said. “Hey, I see the point, you hear people say the record, at one point the record was pretty good, toward the end of my career we didn’t have as much success, and that’s when you had losing seasons.
“I never worried about my quarterback rating. Some of it’s just in the game, down two scores in the fourth quarter I was not going to be shy, I was going to force something, get something going. With it brought some great comebacks and with it brought interceptions and sometimes made the numbers look worse than they really were.”
Manning said he is not obsessing about becoming a first-ballot selection. In 2021, his older brother, Peyton, got in on his first attempt.
“I’ve never looked at other players in the Hall of Fame and wondered what ballot they were,” Manning said.
Soon enough, Manning will know where he stands.
“It’s not going to change how I think about my football career and what playing football has meant to me, what playing for the Giants has meant for me and what it’s provided for me,” he said. “To be amongst the best to ever do it would be an unbelievable honor. It truly would. But if it doesn’t happen this year or if it doesn’t ever happen, it’s still not going to change how I feel about the game and about the NFL and about my time as a player.”