Eli will not miss the Leadership Council (or is it the leadership council?)

I made a big deal about the demise of the Leadership Council this morning when Tom Coughlin said he was essentially putting it out of business. I even decided to give the words Leadership Council two capital letters. That’s how important I thought it was.

Eli Manning set me straight.

“It’s not a surprise,” he said when I asked him about the padlock on the meeting room door. “I think we have great leaders on this team. I don’t think you have to have a council (lower case c) to determine that. They can come to the captains. Anybody can come to Justin or to Chase or I if they have any problems. But a lot of it is we have guys who have been in the league a long time, we have veterans on offense and defense and we have great leadership. When issues come up, those guys have to take charge.”

But what about all of the stories about how great the Leadership Council was in 2007 and how much it helped the Giants win a Super Bowl?

“I think sometimes when you have success they just look at what you did and that’s the reason,” Manning said. “It’s not like the leadership council had a whole lot of responsibilities. It wasn’t like we were meeting on our own. We would meet with the coach and he would tell us the schedule and then that was it. When things go well you have reasons that might not be the actual reason why, and it’s the same when things are going bad.”

Later, Eli added this as his final eulogy for the Council:

“I don’t think it did a whole lot or made a big difference in the past,” he said. “I think we have great leaders on this team. You don’t have to be voted to a council to be a leader.”