Former New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning let loose during the Night with Champions panel on Friday night at Fanatics Fest in New York City. He chopped it up with fellow Super Bowl champions from the organization, taking strolls down memory lane and reflecting on his illustrious career.
Every player has that one game they wish they could get back. Or they have that one game that defined their career, that they wish they could recapture. For Manning, he has that one game in sub-zero temperature, where his hands were nearly frozen solid, and his receivers couldn’t stay warm. Surprisingly, that’s the one he wishes he could play again.
Eli Manning wishes he could replay the Giants’ freezing-cold 2008 NFC Championship win in Lambeau
The Giants traveled on the road to Lambeau Field in Green Bay to face the Packers for the 2008 NFC Championship. One game away from Manning’s first Super Bowl appearance of his career, he was forced to play through harsh conditions in the NFL’s coldest stadium. Nevertheless, he and the resilient G-Men persevered, winning the matchup on an overtime field goal before going on to win Super Bowl XLII.
This game marks a fond memory for most Giants fans. However, most players do not look back on the moment with as much fondness, largely due to the dangerous weather conditions they had to play through. Manning, on the other hand, wishes he could go back in time and experience that cold once more:
“I’m going back to Green Bay in the NFC Championship Game,” Manning responded when asked by Jesse Palmer which one game from his career he would like to replay. “I just want to feel that coldness again.
“I know Plaxico [Burress] loved it,” Manning said sarcastically. “He was fired up that game. Something was working that game. I remember we used to go out in pre-game. It was before every game, I would go with Plaxico and Amani Toomer and we would have about a 25-minute throwing session and we would go through all the routes and do our routine.
“And all of a sudden, we’re about five minutes through the routine, and they’re not catching anything with their hands. They’re body-catching everything, they’re jumping up, their hands are all frozen. And I kinda looked at them, they’re shivvering a little bit, I’m like, ‘Are y’all loose? Are y’all warmed up?’ They’re like, ‘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.”
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Pitch-and-catch football was easy for Manning and the Giants during that NFC Championship Game
In addition to having fun, torturing his fellow teammates and wide receivers pre-game, Manning also had fun during the game, picking apart the Packers’ defense and taking advantage of the mismatch his top receiver posed to Green Bay:
“They wanted to play man-to-man, press-man,” Manning said. “Man-to-man all day on Plaxico. He ended up having 11 catches. I think on nine of them, we just called fade stops, where, if the man was off, he would just run a five-yard hitch. If they pressed him, he was gonna run a fade. I was gonna back-shoulder him, or if he beat them I would lead him down the field.
“It wasn’t complex. This is like, you do this when you’re like eight years old and playing peewee football. ‘Hey, run a hitch or a fade,’ and that’s all we were running, and we kept doing it, and they couldn’t guard him.”
Sometimes football is just that easy. It’s a fun game these athletes have been playing since their youth. The simplicity of deploying a peewee football game plan and picking apart the Packers defense en route to a Super Bowl berth seemed to be one of the most fun moments of Manning’s career — even despite the sub-zero temperature.
Fellow Giants legend Michael Strahan couldn’t believe Manning’s choice to replay that game in the Green Bay frozen tundra:
“That’s the one game you want to replay?” Strahan asked in confusion.
Manning fired back, “Yep! Let’s go!”
All quotes in this article were captured by Empire Sports Media’s own Anthony Rivardo at Fanatics Fest.
