Why Lawrence Taylor believes Eli Manning eventually will be inducted into Pro Football Hall of Fame

MIAMI BEACH – The greatest Giant of all time believes Eli Manning will be joining him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame one day.

Lawrence Taylor, appearing on Radio Row at Super Bowl LIV, said on Wednesday that the recently retired quarterback’s next stop will be in Canton. Eventually.

“I look at it, he won Super Bowls,” Taylor said. “He may not be a first-ballot, but is he a Hall of Famer? Of course. He’s played too many games, he’s done too many good things. He’s been the best of the Giants for too many years. He will get in the Hall of Fame. And if he goes on the first ballot? I’m not surprised. But he will get there if he doesn’t get in on the first.”

Taylor also spoke on a number of other topics.

He was asked how he would try to stop Patrick Mahomes.

“Don’t do what everybody else does,” he said of his advice to the 49ers. “Don’t lose contain on Mahomes. Teams get out of position and stuff doing stupid stuff. How do you expect to play defense if you are not going to contain the man? Keep containment on him and play smart football.”

He was asked how much longer Bill Belichick, his old defensive coordinator with the Giants, might coach in the NFL.

“I mean hell, he’s done everything he can do,” Taylor said. “Bill can coach as long as he wants. I thik when Brady leaves, Bill is going to coach about three or four or five more years maybe just to show them that it wasn’t Brady it was him. But I don’t know.”

And he was asked about Michael Strahan having his number retired by the Giants.

“It hasn’t been retired? I thought it was retired a long time ago. Well it should be retired. We had a lot of great defensive players there and he’s one of them.”

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.