I think so. After all, I’m paying for some of that contract by being a season ticket holder beginning in 2010!! All kidding aside, it was great news for Giants’ fans to lock up Manning for the forseeable future. Of course there was a ton of debate on whether #10 deserves it, but I heard a good assessment from Adam Schefter on ESPN Radio. Manning has won a Super Bowl, is just beginning to enter his prime (a theme I have written about as well), he’s a Top 10 QB, and if the Giants didn’t pay it, someone else would have. So the Giants really weren’t bidding against themselves as some have chimed in, and neither side wanted to go into a contract year without an extension. And as far as being the highest paid player (it’s actually the highest average salary over the next six years), that will quickly fall by the wayside when, say, someone like Phillip Rivers gets his new contract. That’s the way it works in sports. The next one is the biggest one.
Manning certainly should be entering his prime years at age 28. He followed up a Super Bowl victory with a run where the Giants were, IMO, the best team in the NFL for most of the season before running out of steam late last year. Manning is by no means a finished product and while he may never rise to a top five QB, he does bring one intangible to the table which I love. The thing that separates the good teams from the rest of the pack in the NFL is those that finish off drives when the get inside the 20 with touchdowns. Playing offense between the 20’s is easy. Similarly, it’s easy to play quarterback in quarters one through three. But you make your bones by playing big in the fourth quarter when the game is on the line. And Manning does come up big in those situations. I’ll take that trait in my quarterback every day.
