The Manning family has become the first family of football. Archie Manning started things off, and after a brilliant career at Ole Miss and with the New Orleans Saints, two of his sons, Peyton Manning and Eli Manning, of course, went on to have brilliant careers, with each winning a pair of Super Bowls. With a family that successful, there is always a lot of pressure to deliver.
Eli Manning Talks About Following in Archie and Peyton’s Footsteps at Ole Miss
Although Peyton didn’t play at Ole Miss like his father and brother, he did play for the same coach, David Cutcliffe was the offensive coordinator at Tennessee while Manning was there before becoming the head coach who recruited Eli to Ole Miss. That prior relationship with the family helped lead Manning to Oxford, where his father played, rather than finding a new home as Peyton did in Tennessee.
Manning appeared on the Evaluation and was asked about the pressure of following in his father’s (and brother’s) footsteps. Manning believes it was actually his brother who put the pressure on him.
“You know I think there’s always pressure, anywhere you go under those circumstances of following in my dad’s footsteps but probably, there was probably more pressure following in Peyton’s footsteps,” Manning said. “He just, you know, finished an unbelievable career at Tennessee up for the Heisman Trophy a couple of years, and then he’s the first pick an NFL draft. He’s just finishing his second year in the NFL.”
Manning was trying to get his feet under him at the time and certainly didn’t want to make any comparisons to the massive success his older brother had achieved up to that point.
“Then here I come along and try to start kind of my career in college and so I think there’s a lot of assumptions that, oh, he’ll just do the same thing Peyton did. He’ll have the same career and go pro all the same numbers and, and he’ll, jump right in and be there.”
Manning did point out that he wasn’t trying to be like his brother, as great as he was.
“I wasn’t ever trying to be as good as Peyton if I, if I was trying to do that, you know, it would have never worked just because it’s like, hey, he was Gatorade Player of the year? He was up for a Heisman, he’s the first pick in the NFL draft. It’s like, it’s hard to be better than that. So I just had to go in there and try to be a great teammate. Learn every day, get better every single day, and try to be the best version of being the best quarterback I can be. And the whatever that was, I knew I was going to give it my all. That’s all I can ask for myself.”
Obviously, it isn’t easy to handle that kind of pressure, and although he certainly had his struggles, Manning had an excellent career. He has not been elected to the Hall of Fame in each of his first two years on the ballot, but he hasn’t let that bother him.
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“When I think about football, I think about touchdowns, and my buddies, and wins, and plane rides home,” Manning explained. “I don’t think about the interceptions. I don’t think about the bad stuff. I think about the positive things. If I ever get in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, I’ll take it as a positive, and I’m not going to think about the years I had to wait to get in.”
It’s good to see Manning have such a relaxed attitude after such a high-pressure career. Now, Peyton and Eli’s nephew, Arch Manning, the son of their brother Cooper, is seeing that same pressure thrown at him as he will lead Texas into another season with extremely high expectations in the fall.
