Now that Peyton Manning is officially retiring, the tributes will be everywhere. Just this morning, Tom Brady offered kind words about the NFL’s best rivalry over the past decade. So it only makes sense that Eli Manning did the same in a grander fashion.
Eli plays the role of narrator in a four-minute video for TSN, although it was written by ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi. Doesn’t that seem odd? A man’s brother is retiring and he’s letting someone else put his feelings into words? Eli is essentially eulogizing his brother’s career and he contracted outside help for it.
Anyway, it’s a nice video. It features Peyton as a child being overthrown by his dad, then Peyton chewing him out for throwing such a bad pass, because he hadn’t gone through media training yet. There are references to Omaha, all the MVPs and records and other clips from home movies with Eli’s voice flowing over the images like fine wine.
“I was like, oh shucks guys, my big bro can sure toss that pigskin far! Like, golly gee, his arm is stronger than a plow horses’s back and his mind is sharper than the gears of a combine! Look at Peyton throw it! Weeeeeeeeee! I like ice cream and staying up late!”
OK, you know Rinaldi wrote the tribute so Eli didn’t say any of that, but no one is stopping you from dubbing new audio over this video.
