New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning will be playing the final season of his six-year, $97.5 million contract. Manning and the Giants have yet to begin contract negotiations for an extension that would likely keep him with the team until he retires.
However, Manning’s agent, Tom Condon, does not seem to be concerned about the lack of talks thus far:
“The quarterbacks always get done,” Condon said, via the New York Daily News. “And the Giants are not a skittish team. So it’s not one of those things where they get nervous or they jump around or anything like that. You know you’re going to go in and it’s going to get done. I’m sure at the appropriate time it’ll happen.”
Condon makes a point here with these specific examples:
“The interesting part about it is, since 1993, the inception of free agency, has there ever been an elite quarterback hit the open market? Peyton (Manning did in 2012), but he had four neck surgeries and no idea if he would ever be well enough to play. Drew Brees, when he went to New Orleans (in 2006), he had 15 studs in his shoulder, in his throwing arm (from a hit he took in the final game of 2005). There’s nobody else that’s ever come up. They just re-do you.”
With the current exception of Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, Condon is correct in saying that teams eventually take care of their star signal callers. Even with Wilson, there’s still a strong likelihood that Seattle doles out a large contract to retain him long term.
Manning is on course to earn $17.5 million in 2015. This is a rather large paycheck, but it is less than the $20-plus million that six other quarterbacks will earn this season.
With that said, Manning is coming off his best statistical season. He completed 63.1 percent of his passes with 30 touchdowns compared to just 14 interceptions in 2014. This certainly makes a case for Manning to negotiate a payday similar to what the likes of Ben Roethlisberger and Joe Flacco have received in recent years.
There is nothing to suggest Manning won’t play out his career as a member of the Giants. If he inks a five-year deal prior to the start of the 2016 season, it would have him primed to play until he is 39-years-old. If not, the Giants always have the franchise tag as a fallback option.
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