The Hall of Fame voting for 2025 will be completed before Super Bowl week. Giants quarterback Eli Manning is on the ballot for the first time. And there’s a decent chance that Eli will be waiting at least another year to get there.
On Sunday, Paul Schwartz of the New York Post predicted “some fireworks” among the 49 voters regarding whether Eli will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. (Charean Williams of PFT is one of the 49 voters.)
On one hand, Eli won a pair of Super Bowl MVP awards, taking down the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII and XLVI. On the other hand, he was a Pro Bowler only four times, and he was never a first- or second-team All Pro. Still, he’s 11th in career passing yards (57,023), 11th in career touchdown passes (366). But he also has a career passer rating that, by today’s standards, is pedestrian at 84.1. (in the 2024 regular season, 23 qualifying starters had higher passer ratings.)
Complicating Eli’s case are recent changes to the voting. After the class of 15 modern-day finalists is whittled to 10 and then 7, there’s no longer an up-or-down vote on each one, with an 80-percent “yes” vote needed. Instead, the voters pick five of the seven, and only those that get at least 80 percent of the vote are enshrined. That means 40 of the 49 had to include Eli on their list of five candidates from the seven finalists.
During the final ManningCast of the 2024 season, former Patriots coach Bill Belichick expressed optimism that Eli will make it.
“You’re going to look great in a gold jacket,” Belichick said, via Dan Benton of USA Today. “I’m sure that’s going to happen and you deserve it so much.”
Belichick presumably has influence over some on the committee. That said, his strong support of former Chargers and Patriots safety Rodney Harrison has not sufficiently moved the needle.
In time, the needle will move for Eli Manning, who also benefits from the fact that his name is “Eli Manning” and not, say, Joey Joe-Joe Junior Shabadoo. Eli’s post-football media presence will help his cause, too.
It still might not be enough to make it on the first ballot. And, frankly, that honor should be reserved to the players and coaches for whom there will be no debate.
As Deion Sanders might say, that should be the standard for admission on the first try, or any try.
Ultimately, that’s the difference between Peyton and Eli. Peyton was a no-brainer, first-ballot Hall of Famer. If enough voters think Eli isn’t, that might keep him from getting in until 2026, at the earliest.