ALBANY – There they were, Eli Manning and Chad Pennington, the Giants Franchise Quarterback of the Future and the Jets Franchise Quarterback of The Present, head-to-head at a Reebok photo shoot at Hat World in Los Angeles. Manning wore his Giants cap, and Pennington wore his Jets cap. And when they sat down to talk earlier this week about the life and times of the New York quarterback, Pennington was mostly pitching and Manning was mostly catching.
“We talked about being a young player in the league,” Pennington said. “We also talked about being a quarterback in New York. Being a quarterback in New York is different from anywhere else. It can be very rewarding, and it can be very challenging at times. It’s important you keep it all in perspective and trust yourself and remember your roots and what’s gotten you where you are.”
Young Manning, a veritable sponge, picked Pennington’s brain. “I talked to him a little bit, how his first years went, how he came in and didn’t play the first year. I think he said he got in at the end of two games,” Manning said. “The second year a new coaching staff came in [Herm Edwards], so he sat again another year. I just talked to him about sitting, how that was. I talked to him about off-season, how he trained and what he did, how often he threw, whether he took the rest or did he throw all season, and things like that. I try to talk to as many quarterbacks and as many players as possible. Obviously, I have Peyton to talk to, but it’s good to get other people’s opinions and philosophies also.”
“He was curious about how things went with me my first two years,” Pennington said. “If I liked how that happened, if I didn’t like how that happened. What do you do? Do you want to start early or take it all in and then start later?”
Pennington, 28, was a college star at Marshall when the Bill Parcells-Al Groh Jets made him the 18th pick of the 2000 draft. Manning, 23, was the big man on the Mississippi campus. He will walk the tightrope between having the competitive urge to play immediately vs. waiting, watching and learning his craft the way Pennington did.
“It’s something you have to deal with,” said Manning, who signed a six-year contract worth up to $54 million on Thursday. “Obviously, I was redshirted, I sat a year in college. If that’s what happens, I think I’ll be prepared for it. I’m not gonna get upset with anybody. I understand the situations and that it can be helpful, but I still want to get in there and play. I think you learn best from being out there and competing and making plays.”
Pennington’s advice was don’t be too eager.
“Even though competitively, it was tough for me to sit and watch, in the long run, it was the best thing for me,” Pennington said. “There are so many things that go on your rookie year that have nothing to do with football that you have to make adjustments to.”
Family and friends will come out of the woodwork and want tickets to the games, for instance. “Time management,” Pennington said. “You’re no longer just going to class and going to football and hanging out. It’s learning how to be a professional, handling your finances. Everybody’s gonna be pulling and tugging at you from all different angles.”
It was different for Phil Simms, for example. The Giants had hit rock bottom thanks to The Fumble in 1978. Back in 1979, the NFL Draft wasn’t even on television. Ray Perkins deemed Simms, out of Morehead State in Kentucky, ready to replace Joe Pisarcik five games into his rookie season. Simms was hardly overwhelmed. “I was oblivious,” Simms said. “Now there’s so much more attention. You come into the league with a reputation as a college player, so the expectations go up because people know who you are. The money is a factor now. That does add to the pressure.”
Pennington’s single biggest piece of advice for Manning?
“It would be this – patience,” Pennington said. “Patience with your own developmental process. You gotta have patience with the fans. You gotta have patience with the media. When no one else around you has patience. You gotta be the patient person. This city is filled with emotions up and down, and it goes to the extreme.”
Pennington admits that’s easier said than done in a tabloid town that trumpets euphoria or disaster.
“You have to surround yourself with successful people who know how to stay on an even keel,” Pennington said. “And also surround yourself with people you trust and love the most.”
Pennington had one luxury that Manning will not have – Vinny Testaverde, the perfect tutor in every way. Manning will be under the wing of Kurt Warner, a good guy but a quarterback who is more interested in resurrecting his own career and fending off a challenge from The Kid.
“But that’s OK,” Simms says. “It’s just as good as being a tutor because he’s gonna put out a tremendous effort and he’s gonna make Eli Manning compete with that effort.”
It was following a disastrous loss in Champaign, Ill., to the Bad News Bears in December that seemed to put a dagger in the 2002 Jet playoff hopes that Pennington learned an invaluable lesson by studying Testaverde.
“It seemed like the whole world flipped over and turned against the Jets,” Pennington said. “Our season was at a pivotal point. Jet fans were saying ‘Same Old Jets, they’re not gonna make the playoffs.’ Seeing Vinny’s demeanor not change was important for me. I had my wife and my mom and my dad that I could use as a sounding board to keep me sane. Them telling me, ‘Trust yourself. It’s gonna turn around for you. Don’t change. Stay on that even keel.'”
“I don’t know if I came out with one piece of advice that [Pennington] said,” Manning said. “[He] just talked about how it helped him to sit and watch and learn that way, so that when he got in there, when he became the starter, he was more comfortable and knew all the offense.”
If anyone is cut out to be a New York quarterback, it is Manning. He has the bloodlines – father Archie was a longtime Saints quarterback, and older brother Peyton is the Colts’ franchise – and the temperament. They call him Easy.
“To me, Eli has a calm demeanor,” Pennington said. “He doesn’t look like he’d go to the extreme and go through a range of emotions.”
“When you watch people get interviewed,” Simms says, “you can see it in their face if it’s work, if they really don’t like it. He understands it. He seems to enjoy it. It should make for a very comfortable relationship between him and the media.”
Pennington is what Parcells used to call an up-front quarterback – secure enough to shoulder the blame for his team even when a loss is not his fault. It helped being the son of a football coach. New York loves when Pennington head-butts his teammates during introductions. Pennington loves playing in New York.
“The fans are very passionate about their team,” he said. “Jet fans get pumped up for Jet football. You just have to learn how to deal with the negativity. But if you win, you don’t have to worry about it.”
Simms, accustomed to playing in front of crowds of less than 5,000 people, relished the arena. “I liked the passion of the fans,” he said. “The fans in this area of the country are different.”
Pennington grew up in Nashville, Tenn., Manning in New Orleans. Simms was a Kentucky boy. Joe Namath, the Jets’ No. 1 in 1965, came from Alabama by way of Beaver Falls, Pa. Indeed, New York is the best place to win and etch your legacy in stone.
“Look at the previous teams that won here, starting with Joe Namath,” Pennington said. “They’re still talking about it 35 years later.”
So when you ask Simms what his advice to Manning would be, he chuckles and says: “Throw it to the open guy. Complete as many passes as you can.”
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CHAD PENNINGTON
HEIGHT: 6-3
WEIGHT: 225
AGE: 28
BORN: Jun 26, 1976
BIRTHPLACE: Knoxville, TN
COLLEGE: Marshall
DRAFTED: 2000, 1st Rd., 18th pick overall
ELI MANNING
HEIGHT: 6-4
WEIGHT: 218
AGE: 23
BORN: Jan. 3, 1981
BIRTHPLACE: New Orleans, LA
COLLEGE: Mississippi
DRAFTED: 2004, 1st Rd., 1st pick overall (San Diego Chargers)
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Thrown into the fire
A look at how the first-round quarterbacks of the Giants and Jets (original Titans) fared in their rookie season and in their career with the team:
PLAYER+DRAFTED BY, YEAR (COLLEGE)+FIRST YEAR+CAREER WITH TEAM
++ COMP.-ATT.-YDS-TD-INT+COMP.-ATT.-YDS-TD-INT
Travis Tidwell+Giants, 1950 (Auburn)+25-55-338-4-3+33-76-493-5-7
Lee Grosscup+Giants, 1959 (Utah)+No passes attempted+16-47-231-2-4
Sandy Stephens+Titans, 1962 (Minnesota)+ 15-22-123-0-0 +15-22-123-0-0
Joe Namath+Jets, 1965 (Alabama)+164-340-2,220-18-15+1,836-3,655-27,057-170-215
Phil Simms+Giants, 1979 (Morehead St.)+134-265-1,743-13-14+2,576-4,647-33,462-199-157
Richard Todd+Jets, 1976 (Alabama)+65-162-870-3-12+1,433-2,623-18,241-110-138
Ken O’Brien+Jets, 1983 (Cal-Davis)+No passes attempted+2,039-3,465-24,386-124-95
Dave Brown+Giants, *-1992 (Duke)+4-7-21-0-0+766-1,391-8,806-40-49
Chad Pennington+Jets, 2000 (Marshall)+2-5-67-1-0+477-721-5,418-37-18
*-Brown selected in 1992 supplemental draft; Giants forfeited No. 1 pick in 1993
