Retired New York Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes backs Eli Manning against the mob, says there’s nothing but love and respect for No. 10.
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Retired New York Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes has become an exceptionally vocal and public figure after walking away from the game in 2014 following a lengthy battle with MRSA.
Unsurprisingly, Tynes has focused much of his attention on the Giants, proving daily commentary (and comedy), which has helped some fans ease the misery of constant losing.
On Wednesday, Tynes sat down with Ed Valentine of Big Blue View and discussed a number of topics, ranging from Sterling Shepard’s health to Aldrick Rosas’ struggles. He also addressed Eli Manning and the unceremonious end to his Big Blue career.
“It’s tough because of all the things he’s done for us and for the city and for the organization. I think it’s more strange than it is tough. Father Time is undefeated in football, and Eli had an unbelievable run in a really tough market for the greatest football franchise in the NFL,” Tynes said.
“I think it’s just strange to see him standing with a ball cap on and an earpiece and not playing, but I will give management and the coaching staff my full backing on that. It was the right thing to do. There’s clearly kind of a drop-off.”
While Tynes acknowledged a decline in Manning’s play, he stopped short of saying the two-time Super Bowl MVP was “washed,” as the cool kids like to say these days.
“I still think he could do it if he needed to, but I just think where we were as a franchise, you draft Daniel Jones sixth overall, you’ve got to play that kid,” Tynes added. “He just wants the best player to play, who right now is Daniel Jones . . . he’s the ultimate great teammate. He’s just the best.
“I have an enormous amount of respect and love for Eli Manning. Always will.”
The love and respect that Tynes expresses for Manning are a common theme among his former teammates, all of whom would go to war for him. Unfortunately, it’s in stark contrast to Manning’s current teammates, who were reportedly “demoralized” when learning Eli would return in 2019.
Touchdown Wire ranks the 32 NFL teams in terms of stability and potential at the game’s most important position over the next 3-4 seasons.
Tom Brady might be the best quarterback ever, but he’s not the best in the NFL right now. He certainly won’t be the best in 2022.
He’s human, after all, and at age 42, regression is inevitable even for someone with six Super Bowl rings. That puts the New England Patriots in an uncertain situation at quarterback two or three years down the road. The New Orleans Saints, with 40-year-old Drew Brees under center, find themselves in a similar scenario.
Other teams, such as the Chicago Bears and Carolina Panthers, likely will face difficult personnel decisions at the quarterback position much sooner than that. Only a handful of teams, notably the Kansas City Chiefs and Seattle Seahawks, appear secure in their quarterback situation for years to come.
All this got us thinking about the quarterback situations of the future — and where each of the NFL’s 32 teams ranks in terms of preparedness at the game’s most crucial position.
By quarterback situations, we mean the full overview of each team’s quarterbacks group, including backups and a potential succession plan, if necessary. For this exercise, we will define the future as three to four years down the road.
To help form these opinions, we consulted with a blue-ribbon panel of one former head coach, two former general managers and one current general manager. They were asked for their thoughts on each team’s quarterback situation. They provided insight to inform our rankings.
With that in mind, we present Touchdown Wire’s future quarterback rankings for every NFL team, from worst to first:
32. Miami Dolphins
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Earlier this season, many observers accused the Dolphins of tanking to earn the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft and presumably select a quarterback. Since then, Miami (2-8) has been eclipsed by the ineptitude of Cincinnati (0-10) and Washington (1-9), so the Dolphins might not get the first QB off the board. Currently, the Dolphins have Ryan Fitzpatrick and Josh Rosen on their roster. Rosen has failed in his playing time. There’s no way he’ll be back next year. The Dolphins have the option to hang onto Fitzpatrick, 36, who’s currently under contract next season at $5.5 million. It makes sense to keep Fitzpatrick around for one more year to help groom a young quarterback. That could be LSU’s Joe Burrow, Alabama’s Tua Tagavailoa (although his recent hip injury now complicates his draft status), Oregon’s Justin Herbert or Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts. Two members of my panel said they like Burrow better than Tagovailoa. Either way, it’s going to take some time to develop a young quarterback.
31. Chicago Bears
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For the moment, Mitchell Trubisky is Chicago’s starting quarterback. But it doesn’t appear that he will be in that role next year — although he remains under contract and the team holds a fifth-year option on the No. 2 overall pick from 2017. Given his level of play this season, it’s highly unlikely he will receive the option year, and he might not even see 2020 with the Bears — although the cap hit for cutting him would be slightly more than $9 million. The Bears are 4-6 after going 12-4 last year. There’s one main reason for the decline. That’s Trubisky. My panelists say he’s holding the offense back and could end up keeping a good team out of the playoffs. All four panelists agree Trubisky should be nothing more than a backup. Current backup Chase Daniel’s contract expires after this season. So there’s no telling who will be Chicago’s quarterback next year. Maybe the Bears will draft a quarterback. But with a talented roster already in place, the Bears should be first in line to sign New Orleans backup Teddy Bridgewater as a free agent.
30. Cincinnati Bengals
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Veteran Andy Dalton has been benched, and the Bengals are giving rookie fourth-rounder Ryan Finley a shot. There should be no turning back to Dalton, even though he remains under contract for 2020 with a $17.5 million scheduled salary. The Bengals can cut Dalton after the season without any salary cap ramifications. It’s too early to judge Finley. Cincinnati is going to end up with an early draft pick and could have a shot at Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa, Justin Herbert or Jalen Hurts. The Bengals will be starting over. But, given their current state, that’s not a bad thing. “Dalton had more than enough time and couldn’t win consistently,” one panelist said. “I have no idea what they have in Finley. But they have to draft a quarterback if they’re sitting there at No. 1 or 2.”
29. Washington Redskins
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The current situation is a mess. Veterans Colt McCoy and Case Keenum, who clearly aren’t the answer, each is in the last year of their contract. The Redskins have little choice but to play rookie Dwayne Haskins, who has five interceptions and two touchdown passes, the rest of this season. Call it an audition for Haskins. But this situation is complicated because the Redskins currently have interim coach Bill Callahan, who took over when Jay Gruden was fired. There will be a new coach next year, and he might not like Haskins. With an early draft pick likely, the new coach might want his own guy. Give up on Haskins after only one season? Arizona did it with 2018 first-round pick Josh Rosen after drafting Kyler Murray. All four of our panelists said Haskins was overrated when he was drafted.
New York Giants QB Eli Manning will reportedly refuse to appear in a ceremonial on-field goodbye.
The New York Giants have three home games remaining on their 2019 regular season schedule, which means there are just three more opportunities to put veteran Eli Manning in front of the home town crowd for a well-deserved goodbye.
However, that is not going to happen and it has nothing to do with any decisions the Giants have or have not made.
Par for the course with Eli, he has no interest in taking part in a ceremonial game and will refuse to play unless a scenario for his return is created naturally, reports the New York Post.
“Eli’s not into playing that game,” one insider says. “He’s into playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played.”
Manning, the insider said, would view a last-start spectacle as “ceremonial nonsense” and that he has given “zero thought to that” and “he would not want any part of that.” Remember in 2017, Manning stiff-armed the plan to have him start to keep his streak alive, sensing disingenuity.
Ultimately, Manning’s swan song will remain a Week 2 loss to the Buffalo Bills on September 15, 2019. After that, the Giants panicked and sold Eli up the river, yanking the rug out from under him and resigning him to the bench, where he’s remained since silently.
The Giants will likely have a nice video tribute set up for Manning in the MetLife finale, but other than that, we’ve already seen the most unceremonious and unfortunate end for a future Hall of Famer of all-time.
The New York Giants locker room was reportedly “demoralized” when learning that QB Eli Manning would return in 2019.
A commonly held belief in recent years is that New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning had essentially fallen off a cliff, seen his skills rapidly deteriorate and become a liability that co-owner John Mara was forcing on general manager Dave Gettleman and head coach Pat Shurmur.
Of course, both Gettleman and Shurmur had raved about Manning and were keen on sticking with him until they realized following Week 2 that they couldn’t really compete during a rebuild. As a result, they ushered in the Daniel Jones era.
But was there more to it than that? Did Manning’s teammates essentially fold when realizing the two-time Super Bowl MVP would again be under center in 2019? ESPN’s Jordan Ranaan certainly thinks so.
“There was just no reason to bring [Eli] back, especially once you drafted Daniel Jones. You’re much better off having Ryan Fitzpatrick — or whatever other quarterback — that you know you’re bringing in, you’re not paying a lot of money, you’re putting him as a starter if you wanna wait on Daniel Jones, which they did, and then whenever you want to make that move, it’s a move you can make easily and save money,” Ranaan said on the Breaking Big Blue podcast.
“It also dragged along a situation that was hanging over the team. The whole Eli situation was hanging over the team. He was in decline, the offense wasn’t playing well for the last two-three years and they keep bringing him back. It’s sort of demoralizing to the guys on the team. Trust me, they sit there and tell you, ‘We back Eli, we back Eli.’ I know behind the scenes there were a lot of guys who were like, ‘Man, I can’t believe we’re going back with Eli again.'”
If what Ranaan suggests is true, Manning’s teammates went to great lengths to cover up their alleged disdain over his return, voting him a team captain for the 13th consecutive season, which is extremely sketchy and somewhat disrespectful for a franchise great and future Hall of Famer.
Ironically, if the Giants players were concerned that Manning was holding them back, 2019 has served as a brutal dose of reality because the offense is actually performing at a lower clip than it had under Manning in 2018 while the same problems that have plagued the team for years continue to persist.
It becomes easy to find and continue to point at a scapegoat — even if they are doing it quietly behind the scenes instead of like men face-to-face — but if we’ve learned any one thing this season, it’s that Manning was absolutely not the root cause of Big Blue’s problems and made the team no worse (or better) than it is now.
Manning certainly deserves better than he’s gotten from both the team and media, and apparently he also deserves better than he’s gotten from his teammates who talk trash about him from the shadows.
The Giants organization has fallen hard and it’s fallen fast, and based on Ranaan’s reporting, the culture has completely deteriorated.
