It took 22 years, but Eli Manning has finally revealed the details behind one of the biggest draft controversies in NFL history. Back in 2004, the Chargers made Manning the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft, but he never actually played a down for them.
Over the past two decades, Manning had never really explained why he didn’t want to play for Chargers, but that changed this week. During an interview on the “Bussin’ with the Boys” podcast, the two-time Super Bowl winning quarterback offered some new details about why he wanted nothing to do with the organization.
The reason Manning wanted nothing to do with the Chargers
During the lead up to the draft in 2004, the Chargers sent every top person in their organization out to New Orleans to meet with Manning and his family. At the time, the team’s head coach was Marty Schottenheimer and the general manager was A.J. Smith, and they were both on the trip. The Chargers are owned by the Spanos family and several of them were also in New Orleans to meet with Manning, who had just finished his final year of playing at Ole Miss.
At one point during the visit, Manning had dinner with the Chargers’ brass and that’s when he seemed to have a realization.
“I just didn’t feel like they were the most committed team to winning at the time,” Manning said. “Marty Schottenheimer was the head coach, who was awesome, had great respect for him.”
Over the course of the night, the Chargers came off as an organization that was in total disarray with members of front office ‘yelling’ at each other at dinner.
“They came to work me out in New Orleans, went to dinner and there was just friction between the head coach, general manager, the owners,” Manning said.”They were all yelling, kind of like fighting. We’re at a Marriott restaurant. Schottenheimer’s mad, he’s like, ‘We’re in New Orleans and we’re eating at a Marriott?’ He’s pissed. They are kind of bickering. It just didn’t seem there was a lot of agreement on things and [didn’t seem] they were committed to building a great winning franchise at that moment.”
After the visit is when Manning apparently decided that he would rather not play football than play for the Chargers. To his credit, Manning did a good job of reading the room, because there was definitely some friction between Schottenheimer and the front office. In 2006, the Chargers fired Schottenheimer after a season where he had led them to a 14-2 record.
Manning also cleared up a misunderstanding that’s been floating out there for 22 years. The former Giants QB said his dad had nothing to do with his decision. Over the years, the belief was that his dad, Archie Manning, talked him out of going to the Chargers, but Eli says that simply wasn’t the case.
“My parents really weren’t supportive,” Manning said of his decision to not play for the Chargers. “My dad didn’t like the idea. Now, he came to my defense and supported me after everything was going down. Afterwards, he took a blunt of the criticism, because he came to my defense and people were saying, ‘Oh, you played in New Orleans. All those years you didn’t win, so you’re trying to dictate where your son’s going.’ And he just kind of bit his tongue and said, ‘This is what Eli wants to do and I support him.’ And he kind of did some media to save me from doing all of the media and taking the hits.”
Back in 2021, Manning originally revealed that his dad had nothing to do with his decision, but this is the first time that he has ever revealed publicly that a dinner with the top members of the organization is what turned him sour on the franchise.
It probably also didn’t help that the Chargers were gaining a reputation as a place young quarterbacks should avoid: Drew Brees had a rough first two seasons in San Diego and that came shortly after the team’s debacle with Ryan Leaf, who was the No. 2 overall pick in the 1998 NFL Draft.
How the 2004 draft ended up playing out
The 2004 draft ended up being one of the craziest ones in NFL history. Just days before the draft, Manning’s agent (Tom Condon) flat out told the Chargers that Eli would sit out the entire 2004 season if the team drafted him with the first overall pick.
The Chargers ended up ignoring the threat and they decided to take Eli anyway, which set the stage for the most awkward draft photo in NFL history.
One interesting twist to the above photo is that Eli actually kept his Chargers jersey, which is a piece of information he revealed back in 2018.
“I did,” Manning said. “I think my mom had it for a little bit, and I think she tried to, she’s like, ‘Well we don’t need this,’ and tried to give it away to somebody. I think my dad wised up and just said, ‘You know, let’s just hold on to that for a rainy day, it might be a good story.’ So it’s in possession, so just to have that for a rainy day.”
Although he kept the jersey, Manning never actually played for the Chargers and that’s because he got traded to the Giants shortly after the draft photo was taken (Before trading him to New York, the Chargers actually almost traded him to the Browns, a detail that came out in 2018).
In the deal between the two teams, the Giants got Manning while the Chargers got a haul of picks that included the fourth overall pick in 2004 (Philip Rivers), a 2004 third-round pick (that became kicker Nate Kaeding), a 2005 first-round pick (that became linebacker Shawne Merriman) and a 2005 fifth-round pick, which was later traded to the Buccaneers for left tackle Roman Oben.
Manning ended up winning two Super Bowls with the Giants, so things worked out well for him. As for the Chargers, they did get a moral victory of sorts because they were one of three teams that Manning never beat in his career. In 16 seasons, Manning faced the Chargers four times and went 0-4.
