Eli Manning's new Giants experience: Football as a spectator sport

Among the fans who filed into MetLife Stadium on Sunday for the Giants' opener against the Broncos, the first game since the pandemic with a full crowd of season-ticket holders, was a first-timer embracing his experience. He said he was looking forward to "enjoying it and rooting the team on." He noted he hoped to make such excursions with his wife and kids a "family tradition." And as he stood in the wide concourse of the building a few hours before kickoff he looked around like a tourist. "This is all kind of foreign territory for me," he said, trying to find landmarks to tell him where he was and where he had to be. "I have to learn my way around a little bit."

It wasn’t an entirely unique situation except for one key element.

The fan? It was Eli Manning.

Yes, the team’s recently retired quarterback, future Ring of Honor member, soon-to-be retired number wearer, and official ambassador for the franchise, was on hand. He’d been in unform for every game the Giants had played at MetLife Stadium until last season. On Sunday, he watched from his new perch, a suite on the visiting side of the building just outside the Hackensack Meridian Health Giants Legacy Club (Manning helped cut the ribbon on the newly named museum that is open to all fans on game days).

"It’s much more relaxed coming to the stadium today than the last 16 years when I was coming to play and had to perform and game plan," Manning said. "It’s exciting . . . I’m just a spectator. Once the game starts I’ll just sit and enjoy it."

Once he retired, Manning said he wanted to take a year away from football and see if there were other things that interested him. What he discovered, he said, was that were "not a whole lot" of those things besides football. Of course he still has his Tackle Kids Cancer foundation, which has raised $12 million, and he is on the board of trustees at Hackensack Meridian Health, but most of his endeavors revolve around the game he once played.

One of the more high profile of those is his new gig as part of ESPN’s Monday Night Football alternate broadcast team with his brother Peyton Manning. Eli said he and Peyton did some dress rehearsals and dry runs watching games from last season and this summer’s preseason game between the Jaguars and Saints, but they’ll make their on-air debut Monday calling the Ravens-Raiders game.

"I haven’t watched Monday Night Football with Peyton in a long time so I am looking forward to it," he said.

There is some prep for that, but Manning said it is nowhere near what he did as a quarterback. Nor is it near what other broadcasters likely put into their performances.

"I can’t tell you every single player on both teams," he said. "I don’t know exactly who the left guard is and who the backup center is, I don’t know all those things . . . You get to kind of give an inside look of, Hey, what’s the coordinator yelling at Derek Carr about right now? What’s going on on the sideline? What’s going on at halftime? What’s the strategy of certain things? Why was this play successful or why was it not? It’ll kind of take you inside the ropes a little bit. We’ll have some guests on there and keep it fun."

Manning said he and Peyton plan to cover the Giants’ Monday Night game against Kansas City on Nov. 1 and are still unsure if they will do the Giants game in Tampa Bay on Nov. 22.

As for Manning’s first game at MetLife as a fan Sunday, it was also his last without his name in the team’s Ring of Honor. That will be rectified in the Giants’ next home game on Sept. 26 against the Falcons. His jersey will also be retired that day.

"I choose to remember the good times in this stadium and the good times in my career, and that will be another I can add to those memories," he said. "Today I had all these emotions coming back into the stadium for the first time. When there is a kickoff and you are not on the sideline or not running out there, it’s a little bit different. But I think it’ll be emotional that day [on Sept. 26]. Just one last true farewell and a thank you to the fans and the organization and teammates."

Farewell . . . until he gets to his seats for the Giants game after that on Oct. 17 against the Rams, of course. Don’t forget the newest Manning Family Tradition!

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.