Easy does it: Mississippi's Eli Manning learned how to play football from his legendary father and superstar brother. But it's his unflappable nature on and off the field that might make him the best quarterback in the family

Sporting News, The, Sept 30, 2002 by Matt Hayes

Eli Manning is on the stage, and the hypnotist is working overtime, but it's just not happening. The hypnotist has nine others under his power, but the show is dragging now, and he can't for the life of him figure out why the kid with the famous last name isn't budging.

This story begins on stage because the stage is where Eli Manning didn't want to be. Not on it, not in front of everyone and certainly not pranced around like some show dog during game-week festivities at the Independence Bowl.

This is three years ago, and Manning is an 18-year-old who hasn't played a down at Mississippi. The Rebels' quarterback of the future has spent the year as a redshirt, trying to keep a low profile but knowing the spotlight eventually will cut open his world and expose it.

"I kind of felt bad for the guy," says Ole Miss center Ben Claxton of the hypnotist. "I knew he wasn't going to get Eli under."

Three years later, the basic facts of Eli Manning's life haven't changed. He's still Archie's son. He's still Peyton's brother. He's still chasing legacies--plural--no one in pads can live up to. The difference is that he now couldn't care less about it all. The junior is one of college football's best quarterbacks, and if he decides to leave Ole Miss after this season, he could be the first quarterback taken in the 2003 NFL draft. Oh, yeah? Big deal.

Easy Eli--that's what they call him in Oxford, Miss., where the silky-slow southern lifestyle is as much a part of his demeanor and personality as the game he grew up playing watching and living. This is his epicenter, his foundation, shielding the chaos blooming around him. It's a place where the pressure to follow a cult hero (Archie) and live up to a college football icon. (Peyton) and make your own indelible mark isn't so bad after all--or at least is easier to deal with when you're in your zone.

"I'm comfortable here," Eli says. "I can be myself and not have to work at it."

Archie and Olivia Manning's three sons never were pushed into football, but it always was prevalent. Cooper, the oldest, first lived with the expectations that came with being Archie's son, but his career as a receiver at Ole Miss was ended by an injury. Peyton shied away from Archie's legacy in Oxford but set new standards as an All-American quarterback at Tennessee. Now comes Eli, who lacks both the rhythmic repetition of Peyton's game and the flamboyance of Archie's college game, but he has in abundance the simple desire to play football.

"I've never coached a player who has so much fun just being out there playing the game," says Ole Coach David Cutcliffe, who was Peyton's offensive coordinator at Tennessee. "It was work for Peyton, and he worked hard at it. With Eli, he's just having fun out there."

Maybe that's why it has been so easy for Eli to embrace his past and thrive in the accompanying pressure that probably should bury him. Archie is the most popular sports figure in Ole Miss history; Peyton had babies named after him in Tennessee. Archie began Eli's junior season by announcing that Ole Miss would not push Eli for the Heisman Trophy, essentially because a campaign would be a distraction and because the family had been so soured by Peyton's experience as Heisman runner-up his senior season in Knoxville. Peyton began this year saying Eli's talent one day could dwarf his--and Peyton is one of the NFL's best quarterbacks.

And Eli? He threw for 31 touchdowns and nearly 3,000 yards last season as a first-year starter, and he Miss fans hoping for--no, expecting--their first Southeastern Conference championship in 30 years and their first major bowl appearance since Archie led the Rebels to the Sugar Bowl at the end of the 1969 season and got a personal note from the President himself:

To Archie:
One of your biggest fans.
Richard Nixon

This is what Eli Manning wakes up to every morning. He gets in his car, drives down Jackson Street, pulls onto campus and sees the speed limit: 18 mph. The limit was changed two years ago to Archie's retired number (campus police say this is a coincidence)--the same number the school wanted to unretire to give to Eli three years ago. But in a rare moment of uneasiness, Eli declined and took No. 10.

"What if I came in here and wasn't any good?" Eli says.

Then again, what if he was? What if he was so good--"Better than Peyton goody," says one NFL general manager--that the shy, unassuming kid became the best Manning of all?

Watch him on the field; Eli makes the same drops and has the same mannerisms and release as Peyton. He has the arm strength, size (6-4, 218) and temperament to flourish at the position. But while Peyton has a tendency to force throws and press at times when dealing with adversity, as Archie did, Eli doesn't get rattled. It's just a game for Easy Eli; always has been.

"As cool as the fan," says Ole Miss wideout Mike Espy.

That's why the side everyone sees--the enormous talent and potential on the field--overshadows how he deals with everything swirling around him off the field. Eli already is a cult hero, having set or tied 17 school passing records and having the Rebels primed to make a move in the SEC West Division. But though the pressure at times is overwhelming, he remains Easy Eli.