Manning Family Has Three All-Pro Quarterbacks

Giants and Colts Will Pay Eli & Peyton Manning $30 Million Annually

Aug 10, 2009

Archie & Olivia Manning's sons receive National Football League salaries, sponsorships and ad dollars unheard of in Archie's all-pro quarterbacking career at New Orleans

When it was announced that the New York Giants would pay Eli Manning a record $16 million per season over the next seven years, they were making him the highest paid player in the NFL. It vaulted him past his older brother, Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts..

According to USA Today, Peyton signed a record seven year $98 million contract with the Colts in 2004, making him then the highest paid player in the league at about $14 million per year.

NFL fans in New Orleans, Indianapolis and New York, as well as college football fanatics in Oxford,, Mississippi and Knoxville, Tennessee, had reason to believe that those millions were paying for more than strong throwing arms.

The Manning arms, plus a thorough understanding of the game, certainly played major roles in bringing them and their teams Super Bowl rings and numerous most valuable player awards. But the millions were also paying for a couple of guys who have shown how to best represent their teams, professional football and the sponsors that contract them.

Archie & Olivia Manning

They learned that behavior at home in New Orleans from Archie and Olivia Manning and older brother, Cooper Manning. Teachers and coaches at Newman High School likely added to it and coaches at Ole Miss and Tennessee might have fine-tuned it.

What other family has two kids that earn $30 million annually, starting from scratch and not counting endorsements and commercials?

Actually, Eli and Peyton started with role model parents. At Ole Miss, Archie was an all-American quarterback, a Mississippi legend. He later became an all pro quarterback playing for the then hapless New Orleans Saints,

Ole Miss Homecoming Queen

Olivia was the homecoming queen at Ole Miss. Their wedding was a Mississippi sensation. In marriage, they became civic pillars of the New Orleans community. After retirement, Archie pursued a successful broadcasting and advertising career.

Most of all, Archie and Olivia watched and supported their three sons, from Little League baseball games, to Newman High School, to the University of Tennessee, Ole Miss, Indianapolis and New York.

"One of us, usually both of us, have been to every football game our sons have played in, going back to high school," Olivia told Peter Finney of The Times-Picayune in 2006. That was right before Eli and Peyton played against each other for the first time in a Giants-Colt game in New York.. She pulled for the offense. Peyton won.

Cooper Manning Was All-State Wide Receiver

Eli and Peyton could have also learned some football and life lessons from big brother, Cooper Manning. Cooper was an all-state wide receiver in high school, catching passes from Peyton. Observers said he was headed for NFL stardom until he was diagnosed with spinal stenosis, which ended his football career.

"I really never had any bitterness," he told Mike Lopresti of the Gannett News Service last year. "I just said, this is the hand I’m dealt and I’m going to play it." He is now part owner of an energy firm in New Orleans specializing in oil and gas stocks.

Eli said Cooper has "done a lot better than Peyton or I could have done" in handling the career-ending diagnosis.

There's never been a football family like the Mannings, a family with three all-pro quarterbacks, includng two young multi-millionaries. Archie would probably have been a third Manning multi-millionaire if had played in the 21st Century instead of in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The copyright of the article Manning Family Has Three All-Pro Quarterbacks in Football is owned by Carroll Trosclair. Permission to republish Manning Family Has Three All-Pro Quarterbacks in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.