Giants Make Eli Manning The $97.5 Million Man

Photograph of Eli Manning, right, talking to Steve Smith at training camp yesterday by Mike Groll/AP

Eli Manning and the Giants have agreed to a contract extension that should keep Eli with Big Blue for the bulk of his career while turning him into the highest paid player in the NFL. With Manning's original contract coming out of the draft set to expire after this season, the Giants inked him to an additional six years, worth $97.5 million—not bad for the 14th highest-rated QB last season.

Starting in 2010, Manning will make an average of $16.25 million a year (if his deal is prorated) through 2015. That puts him over $2M ahead of the next highest-paid QB, his brother Peyton. When discussing negotiations recently, Giants GM Jerry Reese said, “What’s the cap? We don’t save a lot of money. We give it all out.” Reese also said, "He is a franchise quarterback. He has done everything we asked him to do. He has come in, taken a lot of flak from you guys [the media] and he just keeps going. He does what we ask him on the field and he does what we ask him to do off the field. He is a good football player."

The team supposedly rejected the Manning camp's initial suggestion of $20 million a year and NFL sources had believed this might top out closer to $120 million—if not quite hitting the record set by Michael Vick's $130 million deal, which didn't turn out so well.

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By Billy Parker in News on August 5, 2009 4:59 PM

Comments [rss]

JMH

"All he's done is take his team to the playoffs every year..."

And it's amazing how he did that all by himself, without any other players on the team.

JenChungsBaby

Bitter Mets fan.

Guest

As much as I enjoy pro sports, I can't wait for its eventual collapse as player's salaries skyrocket and profits plunge. Maybe then, we can start all over and pay them what they should be paid to play a game.

Son of Spam

By my calculations, that's about $750,000 for each deer-in-the-headlights look at an opposing linebacker. Well worth the money.

jaycjay

As long as the "deer-in-the-headlights looks" continue to often be followed by completed passes, yep, well worth the money.

inoyourider

Wow.

Seems like an awful lot for someone who's still developing.

But, I did get to watch the Giants win the Super Bowl because of him.

Hope he's worth it, I expect to see more rings for that kind of money.

whitecastlerock

The recession is over!!! Hurray! PSLs for everyone!!!!

whitecastlerock

You respond as Bloomberg responds to avoid the facts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk1foEYJnbM

Jen S

Surely you mean Doucheberg?

Jen S

DON'T BLOW IT, ELI!!

JenChungsBaby

Ratings shmatings. All he's done is take his team to the playoffs every year, win a Superbowl MVP and then go to the Pro Bowl. So maybe he's not Joe Montana. He's still better than most of the QBs with higher ratings last year.

A six-year extension means he'll be in line for another fat payday when he's 33 or 34.

jaycjay

Every sport has its share of bogus statistics, but probably none is more worthless than the NFL's "quarterback rating." Which is why no one actually pays any attention to except, except for sports journalists.

QBs will make the Hall of Fame based on yardage, touchdowns, completions, Super Bowl rings... but "quarterback rating" will never be part of any voter's decision-making process. Nobody cares about it, because it's not an accurate measure of anything. Jamming too many different things into one "super-stat" makes it completely meaningless.