Mannings’ focus now on Eli
DALLAS -- As the NFL’s first family of quarterbacks, the Mannings are anything but a house divided.
But the NFL’s divisional playoffs created a formidable logistical challenge, one that had one Manning parent at the RCA Dome on Sunday and the other at Texas Stadium.
Father Archie was in Indianapolis watching son Peyton’s Colts play the San Diego Chargers; mother Olivia was in Dallas watching younger son Eli and the New York Giants play the Cowboys.
In an unlikely twist, Peyton and the defending Super Bowl champions lost and Eli and the oft-maligned Giants won.
Archie, who watched the Giants game at Peyton’s condominium in Indianapolis, is no stranger to such emotional spin cycles.
“It’s bittersweet,” he said in a telephone interview Monday from his New Orleans home. “But we’ve had our good days. I look at the Colts game and we’re disappointed. You say, ‘We could have done this, could have done that.’ But you’ve got to look over there and think those Chargers have had some disappointments too. Norv’s had some major disappointments. So sometimes it’s your turn.”
The Mannings have had a strained relationship with the Chargers since 2004, when the family urged San Diego not to use the No. 1 pick to draft Eli. The Chargers did select him, however, before trading him to the Giants.
Archie was gracious Monday in talking about the Chargers’ latest victory.
“They earned it,” he said. “Like Peyton said, ‘They whupped us.’ They did some really good things.”
The Colts’ passing game put up big numbers, with Manning completing 33 of 48 passes for 402 yards with three touchdowns and two interceptions.
The Chargers shut down the ground attack, though, limiting the Colts to 44 yards in 18 carries. If Indianapolis can’t run, defenders can key off the pass and pay less attention to Manning’s play-action fakes.
“Nobody’s really picked up on this, but the Colts haven’t really run the ball in about a month,” Archie said. “They don’t do well when they don’t run. . . . They’re not like New England. They can’t sit there and hold the ball for four or five seconds. They have to run the ball. They have to create some what-if type stuff.
“They used to struggle running the ball in the red zone. In the last two years they’ve really improved that, so they’ve become an either or down there. Yesterday, it killed them. They could not do it.”
Now Archie’s undivided focus shifts to the Giants, who will play at Green Bay on Sunday in the NFC championship game.
“They’re a blue-collar bunch, and they’re playing hard,” he said. “I thought they could go in there and beat the Cowboys. I believed that thing about it’s hard to beat somebody three times in a year. But the only thing that bothered me -- and I don’t listen to all the stuff -- but everybody was picking [the Giants] to win in an upset.”
In his father’s eyes, that only ratcheted up the pressure on the oft-criticized Eli, setting the stage for disappointment if he couldn’t lead his team -- a 7 1/2 -point underdog -- to victory over the Cowboys, who swept the Giants during the regular season.
“This is his third full year as a starter,” Archie said. “To be able to go on the road and win a couple of playoff games . . . I think more than anything, the way he’s been beat up, to be able to do what he’s done, that’s got to be satisfying to everybody that follows Eli.
“I’m proud of him for the way he deals with things. I don’t think psychologically it’s affected him. I don’t think it’s gotten into his head. He sure hasn’t reacted to it. He’s tried to improve his game, work on his game, and be the quarterback of the Giants.”
Eli’s numbers didn’t necessarily reflect how well he played. He completed 12 of 18 passes for 163 yards with two touchdowns. A highlight was the seven-play, 46-second touchdown drive he engineered at the end of the second quarter, one that covered 71 yards and forged a 14-14 halftime score.
“That gave us momentum, and that was everything in a game like this,” defensive end Michael Strahan said.
Now the Giants face an even more difficult task: knocking off Green Bay at Lambeau Field, where the Sunday forecast calls for temperatures in the low teens.
When Archie played for New Orleans, the Saints played the Packers in Milwaukee but not Green Bay.
So the only time he played at Lambeau was after he was traded to the Minnesota Vikings late in his career.
“It’s just like everybody says,” he said of the historic stadium. “It’s a real special place.”
His ears have already perked up to the talk that the odds are against his son’s team getting to the Super Bowl.
“I already heard somebody say, ‘Eli can’t play in cold weather,’ ” Archie said. “I don’t buy that.
“I think that’s kind of unfortunately what we’ve come to in sports. It’s not just the Mannings. I think a lot of times there’s people out there who are looking for what somebody can’t do instead of what they’ve done, what contributions they’ve made.
. . . ‘You can’t beat this team. You can’t go up against a 3-4 [defense]. You can’t handle a blitz.’ Most of the time it’s hogwash. Sometimes there’s a pattern.”
For years, the knock on Peyton was he couldn’t win the big game. That talk came to an end last season, when the Colts won the Super Bowl. Eli was in Miami for that game against Chicago, watching with the rest of his family from a luxury suite.
For Sunday’s game, it will be the other way around.
“We’ll be there,” Archie said. “We don’t go to every game, but we’ve always tried to be represented in playoff games.
“We want to be there for Eli’s first championship game. We’ll show up.”
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