Over the last 15 NFL seasons, we've seen pleasure and pain, tragedy and triumph, greatness and whatever the f*** the Browns are doing. But we've seen just one look that, miraculously, has the ability to convey every single one of these things... at the same time. The Eli Face.
Kyle Tenney - owner of nine of BFIG's 10 longest comments - sent Commish an email last week. "Commish, I think I just penned greatness. I feel... different. Can you please confirm?" Commish looked, Commish confirmed, and Commish gave Kyle our first guest post of 2017. Read Kyle's full bio
We’ve all seen it. Sunday afternoon, helmet in hand, game out of hand, fresh off three TDs or three picks (there is no in-between). It ends BFIG title belt dreams like it crushes Tom Brady’s perfect Super Bowl record. But does anyone really know the whole story behind the Eli Face? We give you that story, right here, for the first time ever...
Olivia Manning (mother): I remember the first time that expression came across Eli’s face, he was just a few months old and still in the crib. I’d never seen a look like that before, especially on an infant and I was terrified. Archie was out of town as he had a game the next day against the Cowboys, so I had a neighbor watch Cooper and Peyton and I rushed him to the hospital.
Dr. Remy DaFoe: That’s a night I will never forget. Olivia rushed in with Eli and there was a wave of panic across the hospital that something might be wrong with her and Archie’s baby. The rest of the Saints were awful at the time, Archie was all the city of New Orleans had, well him and one of the nation’s best nightlifes, and Mardi Gras, but besides that nothing at all. None of the nurses or doctors had ever seen a face like that before, and certainly not on a newborn.
Olivia: I was obviously relieved to hear that everything was okay, but I must admit it took me quite a long time to get used to seeing that face.
Archie Manning (father/former NFL QB): When I got back a few days later that damn look was still stuck on his face. Liv had called me while I was on the road and told me about what happened, but nothing can really prepare a father to see that.
Peyton Manning (brother/former NFL QB): That face terrified me for years. I refused to even go in the same room as Eli, for years, when he had that look on his face. Eventually I grew to love it though as I’d end up seeing it every time I kicked Eli’s ass at something.
Cooper Manning (brother/blacksheep in a family that includes Eli Manning): Most were frightened by the face but I’ll be honest I thought it was a sign Eli was destined for greatness.
Ms. Sally Pepper (kindergarten teacher): I’m glad Eli was the son of a famous NFL QB as it really helped him overcome the fact that the other children were so taken aback at the look across his face. Many seemed scared at first but they so wanted to be friends with the QB’s son that Eli was never short on willing friends. Although I do remember one girl breaking out in tears the first time the look showed up.
Andy Francois (childhood friend): I’ll be honest I think that the Eli Face got us out of trouble as kids quite a few times. We’d do something wrong and when an adult would try and punish us he’d pull that face out and they became so focused on it they’d forget to punish us.
Olivia: Eli’s 3rd grade teacher thought the face might be a sign of some hidden psychological issues and suggested we take Eli to a therapist. We sought out one of the best child psychiatrists in the country.
Dr. Sam Loomis (Eli’s childhood psychiatrist): I met him, 28 years ago. I was told there was nothing left; no reason, no conscience, no understanding; and even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this eight-year-old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes... the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil.
Archie: I thought all of that was a bunch of got’ dam non-sense. I mean who the hell ever heard of an evil child? I asked Liv what kind of quack did ya send my boy to.
Eventually Eli was able to channel his facial expressions into football glory at Isidore Newman High School. Though he excelled, he was still stuck in the shadow of his older brothers.
Cooper: Before a spinal condition took me out of the sport, I was by far the most talented athlete in the family. I mean I don’t care what Eli or Peyton tell you neither were as good as me in high school, so I think it’s far to assume if I made the NFL neither would be as a good as me either. Huh? What’s that, you want me to get back to talking about Eli’s stupid face? Oh well f*** that, I gave you my line on it.
Frank Gendusa (Mannings’ high school coach): I coached all of Archie’s boys and naturally was looking forward to working with Eli like I had Cooper and Peyton, however our relationship got off to a rocky start. First few times I yelled at him I thought he was ignoring me, it was like he just wasn’t paying attention at all, that’s when a few of the other players told me about the Eli Face.
Peyton: Eli definitely had a better high school career than I expected. After all those years of ass whooping at my hands I thought he didn’t have it, but I guess he was still better than most even if he was never nearly as talented as me. Our stats somehow ended up pretty similar, both started 3 years, 80+ TDs, 7,000+ yards, 60+ completion percentage, but I won more and the times I didn’t there was no stupid look plastered across my face. So, point Peyton.
Andy Francois: The Eli Face continued to have our advantages though. Any person that saw it got the image of a disgruntled 35 year old office worker. We’d go out to Bourbon Street during high school and Eli would whip out that face and we’d be drowning in hurricanes. No one ever thought to card him.
Soon, it came time for Eli to decide where to play football in college.
Peyton: After having had to follow in my footsteps in high school Eli said he wanted to get out of the Manning family shadow so that he wouldn’t be considering Tennessee. Ok, that’s fine, but then that dummy went to Ole Miss where our dad was a legend.
Archie: He told us he wanted to carve out his own path in life and not follow in Peyton’s footsteps, and instead go somewhere the Manning name wouldn’t follow him. I considered reminding him I went to Ole Miss but I figured that he’d find out soon enough.
Eli Manning: Look my dad has a lot of stories, I mean a lot, and sometimes he just goes on forever and I stop following along. I’m sure he had mentioned he went to Ole Miss but I just don’t ever remember hearing anything about it before I went to college. Let me tell you it was quite a shock when I took a walk around campus one Sunday and came across Archie Manning Way.
Archie: Hahahahahahahahaha... hahahahahahahaha.
Eli: Ok I’ll admit, probably should have done some research about where dad went to school. I mean I knew he was in the NFL, I guess I should have been able to assume he’d played college football too.
David Cutliffe (Eli’s college coach): I think it just took a lot of the guys some time to get used to Eli, not his playing style but his facial expressions.
Chris Collins (Ole Miss WR): Look man it’s difficult for your QB to inspire confidence no matter how well he plays when he comes into the huddle looking more like Gomer Pyle than Willie Beamon.
David Cutliffe: As it turned out I think the Eli Face is really Eli’s Eye of the Tiger. I mean when he had that look after a game I knew he was gonna be extra motivated that week of practice. Unfortunately for Eli no matter how hard he worked he just couldn’t shake that face but by his last year things really started coming together.
Tremaine Turner (Old Miss RB): It took Eli til his senior year for us to have a winning record in the conference and I just wonder if things might have been a bit different those first few years if when we needed a big drive our QB didn’t look like Jack Nicholson after he’s had a lobotomy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Chris Collins: Could things have gone better? Sure, but the team had a great season Eli’s senior year and he went 1 in the NFL Draft, hard to get much better than that as far as Eli’s concerned.
Ole Miss wasn’t just about football for Eli. It was also the place he found love.
Allie Manning (former girlfriend/now-wife): I remember the first time I met Eli, we were at a party toward the end of the night and I saw the look on his face and thought, “wow, this guy must be beyond hammered I hope he’s alright.” I went over to check on him and walked him back to his dorm, I gave him my number in case he had any problems that night and needed someone to call. He ended up calling me the next day and asked me out to dinner. It wasn’t until our first date that I realized he wasn’t really that drunk, his face just looks like that a lot.
Olivia: I really thought the so-called Eli Face might hold Eli back romantically so I was thrilled when he met Allie. A mother’s prayers were answered.
Allie: I’ve been told a lot of people were scared of the face the first time they saw it in person, but to me it really just reminded me more of a sad puppy, I felt like Eli truly needed me.
Eli: Something about Allie made me it clear pretty quick that she was the one for me.
Allie: Eli probably won’t like me sharing this but if we’re being truthful here Eli’s O-face is pretty much the same as the Eli Face. It can certainly take some getting used to.
Eli: She completes me.
Eli readied himself for a career in the NFL, and after some well-documented intervention from Archie, Eli was able to force San Diego - which held the No. 1 overall pick - to send him to the New York Football Giants.
Eli: I just really want to thank Ernie Acrossi for all his done for him. If it wasn’t for him right now I’d be stuck spending my Sunday afternoons playing in front of 40,000 opposing fans in an LA soccer stadium.
Ernie Acrossi (former-Giants GM): We we’re thrilled to get Eli. Appearances be damned. Anytime you can get someone with a Manning pedigree you have to do it. We thought this is a guy who you can really build a team around.
Tom Coughlin (former Giants coach): I didn’t really know what to expect of Eli when we first got him. It’s always hard to predict how a kid is gonna handle life in NYC and there was some concern that he might be diva coming from such a famous football family, but he was definitely more bayou than Hollywood.
Kurt Warner (former Giants QB): I knew I wasn’t a long term option for the team and that Eli was going to take over the job from me at some point. I thought you can either be an asshole to the kid or helpful.
Coughlin: We we’re in the facility breaking down some film from the morning practice and then I look up and I see it the Eli Face. I had heard the stories of course but nothing can really prepare you for the first time you see it in person.
Warner: I’m a very religious man so when I first say it I thought it was some sort of sign from God.
Coughlin: I thought he might be having stroke.
Tiki Barber (former Giants RB): We went out for the afternoon team practice and Kurt just looked shook so I went over and asked him what was up. That’s when he let me know about his up close encounter with the Eli Face. It wasn’t long before the rest of the team found out about it too.
Will Allen (former Giants DB): That afternoon I picked him off about 5 or 6 times and the Eli Face was out in full force.
Barber: Once that face popped up the whole team was beyond startled. We just kept backing away slowly and slowly from him until we kinda just came to the conclusion that practice couldn’t continue and we just all left Eli alone in the middle of the field with that look stuck on his face.
Eli: Sometimes when the face pops up I do just zone out and the world becomes a blur, and that was definitely one of those times. It was for sure a hey, rookie, welcome to the NFL moment. When I finally came through it was about 2:30am and I wondered where the hell everyone went.
In Eli’s first career start, he posted a 0.0 QB rating and was benched for Warner in the second half. Things remained up and down in his career's early years, with people questioning if he could truly make it as an NFL QB. Then the 2007 NFL playoffs happened.
Michael Strahan (ex-Giants DE/current charming TV personality): We had lost the last game of the regular season to the Patriots, that allowed them to go 16-0, but we put up a great fight and while there are no moral victories in the NFL that gave us confidence for a post-season run, and more importantly let us know that things weren’t completely hopeless with Eli. I had skipped training camp and considered retiring before that season as I wasn’t sure it was worth going through another season with him at the helm, but boy am I glad I came back for one more year.
Coughlin: After the loss to the Pats the Eli Face stayed in full force for quite awhile. Most don’t know this but eventually the Eli Face became a sort of rallying cry. We hung pictures of it in every player’s locker.
Strahan: I always joke that Eli is the Homer Simpson of NFL QBs. He’s not the brightest, not the most gifted, he’s definitely gonna screw things up a lot, but damn if there aren’t moments of greatness.
Plaxico Burress (ex-Giants WR): Those playoffs... man... talk about storybook. If it was a movie, you wouldn’t believe that shit.
Strahan: I remember in the Super Bowl locker room before the game, the Eli Face was in full effect, but this wasn’t like the what the f*** did I just do Eli Face, it was one of intensity, like a serial killer or something, Eli definitely looked like Michael Myers, maybe Archie should have taken him to a shrink as a kid I don’t, but I know once I saw that look no way that we were losing.
Bill Belichick (Patriots head coach): What? What’s that you want to know how confident I was before the game? I’m not here to talk about that. We’re on to the next question.
Tom Brady (Patriots QB): Was a confident before the game? Well, yeah, I mean Giselle told me I had nothing to fear with the other team having a QB that looks like a mentally ill Opie Taylor.
Burress: Those dudes had no clue what was about to hit them.
David Tyree (famous helmet-wearer): I’ll be honest, Eli’s inconsistently in practice really ended up helping me. I had grown accustom to needing more than my hands to catch his passes.
Belichick: What? The helmet catch? I’m not here to talk about that we’re on to the next question.
Coughlin: What was going through my mind during the play? Eli please don’t f*** it up. Please don’t f*** it up. Please, please just once don’t f*** it up.
Strahan: What was going through my mind during the play? Eli please don’t f*** it up. Please don’t f*** it up. Please, please just once don’t f*** it up.
Brady: What was going through my mind during the play? Eli’s about to f*** it up. El’s about to f*** it up. Oh man I can’t wait to watch Eli f*** it up.
Eli: Besides my kids being born and the time I finally beat Peyton in Hungry Hungry Hippos, happiest moment of my life.
People began to wonder if Eli had turned a corner. An "elite" corner. In the following year's playoffs, Eli... threw two picks with no touchdowns. The Giants lost. It was back to the wilderness for Eli.
Coughlin: There was definitely a noticeable improvement in Eli’s stats during that time, but that damn face. It would just appear at the worst times. Some say the Eli Face only showed up when Eli threw a pick to blow the game, I saw he threw the interception because of the face.
Eli: I thought after the first Super Bowl win I might have finally beat the face, that’s when I realized that face would be a part of me forever.
Coughlin: After the 2010 season I really started thinking about retirement. I mean Matlock on the radio while playing games on bridge in the retirement home was really starting to sound better than hoping the Eli Face didn’t pop out at the worst time.
Jason Pierre-Paul (Giants DE): I told Eli look my dad is a blind Haitian fisherman, you could do worse than being a millionaire QB in New York with a dumbass face. I think that really helped him.
Brandon Jacobs (ex-Giants RB): We had been really up and down throughout the 2011 regular season, kinda like Eli has for his entire career. That season we got the good Eli Face, the bad Eli Face, and everything in between. I had no idea what to expect during the playoffs.
Belichick: What? The second Super Bowl loss? I’m not here to talk about that, we’re on to the next question.
Coughlin: Eli taking me to a second Super Bowl, I never imagined it. I’d have an easier time believing Ice Cube is a better person than Bill Cosby.
Brady: I mean I didn’t expect to lose to him the first time, never even considered it a second time.
Mario Manningham (ex-Giants WR): Yeah that was a pretty miraculous run that postseason. I caught the winning TD, and I still have no idea how the hell it all happened. You look at Eli’s career and your conditioned to expect disappointment, except for ya know those 2 playoff runs that make no f***in sense at all.
Eli: My dad always said that you chuck the ball and sometimes good things happen and sometimes bad things happen. Guess that day was just one of those good things. I’d just like to dedicate that win to all the kids out there who also make weird ass faces.
Peyton: I was kinda salty when he won that one as it meant he had more rings than me but fortunately for me Eli wasn’t bright enough to realize that and now I’ve got 2. I’m thinking of pointing all of this out during this year’s Thanksgiving dinner. I’ll be sure to post a pic of the face he makes when it happens.
Archie: If you would have told me 20 years ago that my boys would have 4 Super Rings between them, I’d have thought that Peyton won 4 Super Bowls, but I guess this is good too.
Since his second Super Bowl win, Eli has, for lack of a better term, Eli'd. Despite the faces, interceptions, sacks, fumbles, and faces, no one will ever be able to take Eli’s two Super Bowls away from him. There’s at least a 90 percent chance that if you pick a game involving Eli, it will torpedo your BFIG dreams. He'll either throw three TDs or three picks. There is no in-between. He could win four Super Bowls and we would probably still call him Peyton’s brother and make Eli Face jokes. But that's just it. Nothing can top that face. And THAT is legend all its own.
Eli: And if you can’t respect that, your whole perspective is whack. Maybe you’ll love me when I fade to black. *ELI FACE*
*****
Kyle Tenney is a cool human
SZN member since: 2014
School: Akron
Team(s): Minnesota Vikings
Kyle was born into a northeast Ohio family only slightly more functional than the Manson Family, and grew up in a one stoplight town. Along with several other future members of The SZN, he attended a high school that once had a basketball game rained out due to an abundance of holes in the ceilings and still has what's known as the "Tenney Rule" for speech classes demanding all speeches be limited to 15 minutes or less. From there, he attended the University of Akron, where he argued about sports due to to a lack of anything else to do in Ohio.
The Browns were moving to Baltimore when he was born, allowing Kyle to avoid the tortured life of a Browns fan, and instead become a tortured Vikings fan. He maintains this existence is still highly preferable to that of a Browns fan, due to the Vikings semi-frequent regular season success and having great players at positions besides left tackle. He watches LeBron James play basketball as frequently as possible and recommends all others do as well.
In the last few years, he's worked for the NHL, NCAA, and IMG, had a near death illness, got a lot of jokes off, battled many other chronic illnesses, narrowly missed out on hanging out with Snoop Dogg, and spent much less time writing unimaginably long SZN comments than you probably think.