In the coming-of-age story of Eli Manning, the New York Giants quarterback who has led his team to the Super Bowl, there is a great measure of vindication for a football guy with strong ties to Baltimore and someone a lot of us in the sportswriting business have always rooted for.
Ernie Accorsi, the former general manager of the Giants, who spent more than a decade with the Baltimore Colts, was the man who engineered the draft-day trade in 2004 that brought Manning to New York. Up until the past four weeks or so, it was a move for which Accorsi had taken a lot of heat. Accorsi gave up a lot to get Manning. At the end of the day, the Chargers got their own current quarterback, Philip Rivers (who played valiantly in an uphill effort that ended with a loss to the New England Patriots on Sunday), and draft picks that became linebacker Shawne Merriman (Maryland) and kicker Nate Kaeding.
The trade was forced because Manning was steadfast in not wanting to play in San Diego. In an odd twist, more than two decades earlier, it had been Accorsi, as Colts GM, who was undermined by owner Bob Irsay in trying to keep the reluctantly drafted John Elway in Baltimore. Accorsi told The New York Times he learned of the Elway trade with the Denver Broncos while watching television. Accorsi left the Colts shortly before the move to Indianapolis.
But getting back to the Giants-Chargers deal, Rivers, Merriman and Kaeding turned out to be quite a haul. And when all three went to the Pro Bowl last season while Manning lost again in the first round of the playoffs, which continued a trend of late-season swoons, it reinforced the notion that Accorsi had made one of the worst deals in NFL history.
"You know, I had nine playoff teams," Accorsi said, speaking of his career in NFL front offices that included stops with the Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns and Giants, "but it doesn't matter. Look, Bobby Beathard won two Super Bowls [with the Washington Redskins] and he still gets ripped for Ryan Leaf [the first-round quarterback bust in San Diego]."
Accorsi is no longer the Giants GM. He retired about a year ago. Last season, as the Chargers went 14-2, it appeared San Diego got much the better of the Manning-Rivers trade - and it might still work out that way in years to come - but in the race to the Super Bowl, the one that really counts in the NFL, Manning won.
