Eli Manning found out he was traded to Giants through a 12-year-old
In the 2004 NFL Draft, the New York Giants held the fourth overall selection but general manager Ernie Accorsi was trying to engineer a deal to move into the No. 1 overall spot to select Ole Miss quarterback Eli Manning.
Accorsi could not do so until later in the round. The San Diego Chargers selected Manning first overall, although Manning made his intentions known by publicly stating he did not want to play in San Diego.
The Giants, with the fourth pick, selected NC State quarterback Philip Rivers and then Accorsi turned to Chargers’ general manager A.J. Smith to make a deal for Manning. Long story short, Eli became a Giant that day and the rest is history.
Manning did not know if his wishes would be realized until the trade actually happened. He waited only an hour to find out and was resigned to whatever outcome came about.
“It could have been a bluff,” Eli told Trey Wingo of FOX Sports in a recent interview. “I didn’t know how it was going to play out. They could’ve said you gotta come and play here (San Diego) and you gotta go. I wanted to play football and that’s the ultimate deal. I didn’t want to sit out a full year. I could have sat out a year and gone into the draft again the following year. That wasn’t really something I wanted to pursue and wanted to got through. That was the bluff I had throw out there. It would have been awkward going to the team and not wanting to be there.”
So, how did Eli finally find out where he was going to end up?
“I didn’t know anything about a trade brewing or going on. I was going through different interviews and you kind go from stage to stage and different rooms and all of sudden there’s like a kid; a 12-year-old kid busts through a door saying, ‘Manning’s been traded to the Giants,'” Manning recalled. “I’m like, ‘what does this kid know? How would this guy have the inside information on this?’
“Two minutes later they confirmed it. ‘You’re going to the Giants.'”
Eli and Wingo then laughed off the situation going over how this young man beat the media to the breaking news. Eli even joked that he could have been NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue’s grandson.
“He had the info before my agent,” Manning said. “I found him later. He was a Giants fan and I signed an autograph for him. He was the one who let me know I was a Giant.”
Who this kid was and how he found out Manning was traded before anyone else did we may never know.
