The Eli Manning Era was obviously special for the New York Giants as it yielded the franchise two Super Bowl rings and years of relevancy in the NFL.
While nothing will bring those days back now that Manning is 43 years old and killing it on Monday Night Football's Manningcast among other things, there might be room for hoping on a Manning Era sequel:
Drafting Texas Longhorns QB Arch Manning in 2026, the first year he could declare for the pros.
Obviously, we're talking about a very down-the-road kind of move but in putting together an article on a group of five way-too-early likeliest candidates to end up with Arch, the Giants made the cut.
As part of the just-for-fun exercise, I tried to identify teams with the following traits:
- Teams with no current assured long-term QB plan at quarterback.
- Teams with head coaching turmoil.
- Teams unlikely to turn downward trends around soon.
Perhaps Giants HC Brian Daboll's seat isn't exactly hot as of right now but a lot can change in two years if the team doesn't bounce back and truth is it's a realistic scenario for New York not to bounce back as long as they don't solve the quarterback situation they find themselves in.
Regardless of how you feel about Jones, it's clear the Giants aren't sold on him based on their free agency approach this year, which I explained in my breakdown of why they were among the five teams that could target Arch a couple of years from now:
"I believe it's clear the Giants are not sold on Daniel Jones. They were one of two teams that talked to Russell Wilson in free agency and they brought in Drew Lock for a guaranteed $5 million.
Seahawks GM claimed the Giants convinced Lock he'd have a chance to compete with Jones to be the starter. And with the sixth overall pick of 2024, they might be just out of reach to nab one of the top QBs in this year's class."
Ultimately, it's just a fun exercise. But there's no denying the Giants are in that space where things could go really wrong or really right over the next couple of years. If it's the former, a Manning Era 2.0 would be fun as heck in the Big Apple.
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