The New York Giants made the right decision 20 years ago when they drafted Eli Manning in the 2004 NFL Draft.
Two Super Bowls later, Manning finished one of the best careers of any player in franchise history. There were many memorable moments in his 16-year career, many of them in the postseason, but the one game Manning would love to relive may surprise some people.
“I’m going back to Green Bay in the NFC Championship Game,” Manning said during a panel discussion at the Giants’ 100th anniversary event, Night with Legends, held in June. “I just want to feel that cold again.”
He was, of course, referring to the Giants’ stunning 13-6 overtime victory over the Brett Favre-led Green Bay Packers, in which kicker Lawrence Tynes made the game-winning field goal in overtime that sent the Giants to Super Bowl XLII.
Manning, who has shown his sense of humor since retiring after the 2019 season, joked that receiver Plaxico Burress, who was on stage with him at the event as part of the legends panel, “loved it” and was “excited” for the game.
But in all seriousness, Manning said, there was just something special about that freezing cold night.
“Something worked in that game. I remember we always went out before the game. Before every game, I would go out with Plaxico and Amani Toomer and we would have about a 25-minute throwing drill where we would go through all the routes and do our routine,” he recalls.
“And all of a sudden, we’re about five minutes into the routine and they’re not catching anything with their hands. They’re catching everything with their body, they’re jumping up, their hands are all frozen. And I looked at them, they were shaking a little bit, and I thought, ‘Are you all loose? Are you all warmed up?’ They said, ‘Yeah, yeah, we’re good, let’s go to the locker room.’ It was good to go out there because you knew you couldn’t let your hands get cold. I knew I couldn’t let my hands get cold.”
Although he didn’t throw a single touchdown in that game, the Manning-Burress connection was clear to see. Of Manning’s 251 passing yards, 151 went to his wide receiver. Manning admitted that the Packers made it easy to get the ball to Burress in that game.
“They wanted to play man-to-man, man-to-man,” Manning said. “Man-to-man all day against Plaxico. He ended up with 11 catches. I think nine of them we just called fade stops where if the man wasn’t able to make it, he would just run a five-yard hitch. If they pressured him, he would run a fade.
“I wanted to cover him with my shoulder or, if he beat them, walk him down the field. It wasn’t complicated. That’s what you do when you’re, like, eight years old and you play peewee football. ‘Hey, run a hitch or fade,’ and that’s all we ran, and we kept doing it, and they couldn’t cover him.”
The frigid tundra atmosphere could have ended the Giants’ postseason run in an instant, but Manning and the Giants fought through and pulled out another incredible victory. It’s a win many Giants fans will never forget.
