Of all the NFL drafts he’s been around during a lifetime spent with his family’s team, John Mara never experienced anything that matched the feelings of anxiety and exhilaration involved in bringing Eli Manning to the Giants.
“By far the most drama and most excitement, given what this could mean for us in the future, and knowing we’re taking a bit of a risk, too,” said Mara, the Giants’ executive vice president. “If he’s not successful, we obviously will hurt the franchise, but I don’t think any of us feel that’s going to be the case.”
Mara agrees that with Manning on board and Tom Coughlin taking over for Jim Fassel, there’s a strong sense of rebirth within the franchise. Most drafts bring in new players; this one ushers in a new era of Giants football.
“Maybe going back to the Ray Perkins-Phil Simms era, that would be the closest thing,” Mara said of the new coach and quarterback imported in 1979. “But Phil was not the big name this kid is. Hopefully, this kid will turn out to be as good a player, but Phil was coming out of Morehead State, for God’s sake, and was considered by a lot of people to be the second-best prospect behind Jack Thompson, the Throwin’ Samoan, that year. This has received far more attention.”
After Manning was taken by the Chargers with the first pick, the draft-day trade engineered by the Giants capped a tumultuous pursuit of a player the organization coveted with an uncommon passion. The scene described by Mara – who has been in every Giant draft room since 1991 and before that was closely involved at the Manhattan draft site – early Saturday afternoon was fairly wild, but never out of control.
“When it got hectic was starting at five minutes to 12, when the Chargers told us they were going to go ahead and take him, but they indicated they were still willing to talk,” Mara said. “For that next hour it was pretty hectic and that last five or 10 minutes was very hectic.”
Huddled in GM Ernie Accorsi’s office were John Mara, co-owners Wellington Mara and Bob Tisch, Jerry Reese, the director of player personnel, and vice president of player evaluations Chris Mara. Kevin Abrams, the assistant GM, and Dave Gettleman, the director of pro personnel, would dart in and out of the room with updates from their phone conversations.
Gettleman was speaking to the Browns about possibly trading down to No. 7. After the Giants selected Philip Rivers as a lure to trigger the trade, Accorsi received a call from Charger GM A.J. Smith. The call was not placed on speaker phone, but it was obvious to everyone what was transpiring.
As the trade parameters were hammered home, one final detail remained. “Before we actually agreed to it, I turned to both my father and Bob Tisch and said, ‘You both OK with this?’ and they both pretty quickly said yes,” Mara said.
Thus ended the chase. How recently did Manning pop up on the Giants radar?
“Ernie and I,” Mara said, “have talked about little else for the last I don’t know how many months.”