The Eli Manning situation isn’t an easy one for the New York Giants to handle. Manning was going to end up moving out of his starting role at some point, with his play not being what it once was, but it’s always going to rub some people the wrong way to bench a franchise legend in an abrupt way like the Giants did. The team supported Manning through the offseason and reasserted a number of times that Manning was the starter, rather than the rookie Daniel Jones.
Until Manning wasn’t. The announcement that Manning would be benched after only two games, neither of which featured a full set of healthy receivers for Manning to work with, came as practically a surprise after the Giants picked up their second loss of the season last Sunday.
Where is Manning’s career going to go from here? The season isn’t over and Jones isn’t guaranteed to start for the entire year, but it’s hard to not see the writing on the wall that things are likely done between Manning and the Giants. It’s hard to bring a player back after making the move to start another quarterback, which isn’t just a practical one but a symbolic one also, showing in a way that the torch is being passed.
It seems like Manning playing for another team is more of a realistic scenario than coming back to a starting role with the Giants. What do others think about the scenario? Well, Manning’s former receiver Plaxico Burress believes Jacksonville is one potential landing spot for the Giants QB.
“I don’t believe that No. 10 is done. I could see him down in Jacksonville reuniting with the great Tom Coughlin… I would be really happy for him to see that happen,” Burress told TMZ.
“I think that his time over in New York may be over, but as far as going somewhere else and playing football, I believe that he can still do that,” the former receiver added.
It seems, of course, like the Jaguars are on the list of quarterback needy teams – and with Tom Coughlin running the show as the Executive VP in Jacksonville, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to say that Manning could end up there if both he and the Giants agree that a move elsewhere is the best option for him at this point.
We’ll see what happens in the immediate future, but with plenty of surprises already happening in 2019 such as Eli Manning being benched in the first place, don’t be all too surprised if there’s suddenly a headline about Manning being traded to the Jaguars – it wouldn’t be the craziest thing to happen during this season and offseason.