During his playing days, retired New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning was a like a robot when dealing with the New York media.
Although we rarely saw a sense of humor from Manning, there were always stories floating around about his wittiness around the locker-room.
Now, with his playing career in the rearview mirror, we have heard stories of Manning pranks from his former teammates including Odell Beckham Jr., David Tyree, Wayne Gallman, and Brandon Jacobs.
Manning spoke with Giants Wire earlier this week through his newest charity venture with Quaker and Feeding America. He was asked about his favorite prank and he gave us one we hadn’t heard before.
“I don’t think I can recall one over the other,” Manning said. “Some of them are pretty innocent ones that maybe they haven’t discovered yet or they didn’t know it was me, so I don’t call myself out for being guilty on something. For the most part, I never wanted to upset somebody; never wanted to make it inconvenient for somebody.
“I would change some peoples’ phones and change their wives’ number with coach (Tom) Coughlin’s number so when they thought they were texting their wife, they were texting coach Coughlin. So I’m sure he got some interesting texts over that. I don’t know if I ever got called guilty on that or if they knew it was me but that was an early favorite that we had some laughs with.”
Most people know about Manning’s move to break into phones and swiftly changing the language settings. However, the fact that he got coach Coughlin unknowingly involved on this particular prank makes this one unique.
Manning was such a joker that he actually believes there could still be pranks where he was the culprit and has yet to be caught from his playing days.
Since Manning’s retirement from football, we have seen more and more of his sense of humor. As the years go by, surely more stories of Eli’s funny side will continue to surface.
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