How a ‘shadow’ helped set up the Eli Manning-Philip Rivers trade, according to the GMs who made it happen

For less than an hour in April 2004, Eli Manning was a member of the San Diego Chargers. Despite explicitly asking the team to pass on him with the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft — even threatening to sit out a year — Manning’s name was called.

So he stood on the stage in New York City, awkwardly holding a Chargers jersey with a forced smile amidst a chorus of boos from the crowd.

Less than an hour later, Manning got his wish: a trade to the New York Giants. Shortly after the Giants selected Philip Rivers with the No. 4 pick, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue announced the fifth overall selection along with the announcement that the rights to Manning and Rivers were swapped.

A decade and a half later, Rivers is still the starting quarterback for the Chargers — as is Manning with the Giants. Both quarterbacks are nearing the end of careers that will likely land them in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It’s hard not to think the deal worked out perfectly for both teams.

Getting there wasn’t easy, though. With the trade now 15 years in the rearview mirror, we talked to the two general managers at the time — A.J. Smith of the Chargers and Ernie Accorsi of the Giants — about how they negotiated one of the most important deals in NFL history, including some never-before-revealed details about the week leading up to the 2004 NFL Draft.

Even after all these years, Manning has never really explained his aversion to suiting up for the Chargers. When asked about it in 2013, Manning said he “forgot” why he wanted to avoid San Diego nearly a decade earlier.

Many thought his father Archie was heavily involved; others thought it was orchestrated by his agent, Tom Condon. Even quarterback Ryan Leaf’s disastrous time with the Chargers could’ve played a part.

“[Condon] told me that [Eli’s father] Archie wishes that we do not select Eli and that they think he would be a good fit in New York (with the Giants),” A.J. Smith told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2004. “We understand his position and certainly understand his interest in New York, but we will do what we think is the best for the franchise.

“We had a good visit with Archie and expressed our vision for the future of this team and that there was a strong possibility that Eli might be picked by us with the first pick.”

Archie Manning insists to this day that he didn’t influence the decision.

“It was a decision that Eli and Tom Condon made,” he told the Rich Eisen Show in 2016. “Most people thought I orchestrated it, which I didn’t. I don’t tell my kids what to do, or make decisions for them.”

Smith took it upon himself to find out why he was told not to draft Manning.

“It was my responsibility as a GM [to find out] what is this all about,” Smith told SB Nation. “Where is this coming from? And then I decided to do some research, and I was pretty much shocked and astounded by the information I was gathering.

“A lot of ruthless things are done in our National Football League, down and dirty.”

Neither Accorsi nor Smith knows exactly why the Manning camp came to the conclusion that San Diego wasn’t the place for Eli. But Smith says he has a good idea at how the trade demand came together.

“It comes down to Tom Condon, who at that time I called him ‘super agent,’” Smith said. “He’s like Scott Boras of baseball: prolific in their business, and they try to manipulate the system if they can. They’ve got great players, they have connections, and they can do certain things.

“Then there’s Archie Manning, who I really enjoy listening to constantly talk about how he’s out of the fray, not involved, and just lets his kids do their thing. All fathers want to take care of their families — we all do that. And then he portrays an image, that as far as I’m concerned, is as false as can be, but that’s besides the point.

“Once I connected all the dots and realized all the parties involved: One it’s the Giants, two it’s the agent, and three, Archie Manning.”

But according to Accorsi, the Giants never felt much urgency to land Manning.

“I never felt tremendous pressure that we had to get him because there were three quarterbacks that we had rated very high,” Accorsi told SB Nation.

“We had it Manning, [Ben] Roethlisberger, Rivers. We liked all of them — it’s just that was the way we had them rated. We didn’t think we could lose.”

So why would the Giants try to subvert the draft process and land Manning? Smith says it probably came from Condon’s desire to avoid the three teams at the top of the order.

“They had a situation of ‘How are we going to get to the Giants?’ The obstacle is, really, the San Diego Chargers, the Oakland Raiders, and the Arizona Cardinals, until you get to your spot sitting at No. 4. The information they gathered — and that I had — was that the Bidwills in Arizona that are very, very cheap and the [Manning camp] didn’t want any part of that organization.”

Most importantly, though, the Manning camp wanted to avoid the Chargers.

“They wanted no part of San Diego, because of me — I was a scout that was a novice GM and ‘he doesn’t know what he’s doing right now; he just got there.’ Head coach [Marty] Schottenheimer was there and Tom Condon was his agent and my sources told me that he knew [Schottenheimer] wasn’t long for the place.”

During the 2003 season, third-year quarterback Drew Brees was benched for five games and finished the year with 11 touchdowns and 15 interceptions. Brees was also another one of Condon’s clients.

“[Condon] certainly didn’t like how [Schottenheimer] handled quarterbacks,” Smith said. “He certainly didn’t like the way he handled Brees. He certainly didn’t like that [Schottenheimer] benched him, and he just had a long list. LaDainian Tomlinson was there — a bona fide star that was growing leaps and bounds in San Diego and the NFL — so Tom thought, ‘I’m not going to place someone there.’”

So with Condon aiming to avoid San Diego, the Manning camp concluded the Giants were the preferable landing spot. And Smith alleges that the Giants helped make it happen.

“And through all of that, the last part of it is that Ernie [Accorsi] was very uncomfortable with dealing with this, because we were in uncharted waters in whether this was legal or not legal,” Smith said.

“But here’s the reason I wasn’t the least bit worried: First of all, you’ve got the commissioner involved. Second of all, you’ve got the New York Giants involved with the Maras — and believe me, they’re in the middle of it. You’ve got Tom Condon, super agent. You’ve got Archie Manning, the first football family father.

“So with all that there, I wasn’t the least bit worried about what’s going to happen with the Giants or Chargers. The NFL writes their own rules, they make their own rules.”

And with that, the gears for a blockbuster trade began turning.

After briefly talking during NFL league meetings in March, there wasn’t much contact between Accorsi and Smith leading up until draft day.

“I did not call him much, but the week of the draft A.J. said, ‘I’ll call you Friday.’ The draft I think was a Saturday then, and he didn’t call. So I really felt that we’re not going to make this trade,” Accorsi said.

According to Smith, that was all part of the plan.

“I played the game for our best interests, is the way I’ll put it. First part of it was saying I’d call him back on a Friday — I had no intention of calling him back that Friday prior to the draft. I just let that go,” Smith said.

“On Friday morning, I discussed it with Dean Spanos and Ed McGuire, who was our capologist and director of football operations with me. I told them I was going to inform a particular person — let’s call them ‘the shadow’ — in our organization, that I was telling this person that I am going to be calling the Giants with seven a half minutes to go in the draft to give them an opportunity to come up with a deal. If they can’t, I’d just say I have some bad news — if it doesn’t work to our liking then we’ll just be out a first-round draft pick.

“So I told this person, ‘this is in great confidence and I want you to know that there are four people who know this: That is the owner, me, you, and Ed McGuire.’ And this particular person said, ‘Oh absolutely, thank you so much for telling me our plans.’ I had great faith that trust would be violated and I had great faith that information would be relayed. And I expressed that to Dean Spanos and Ed McGuire.

“One, I wanted to relay that information because it would give the Giants an opportunity to not have a few minutes to decide while they’re gathered around a table, but to have all of that night and all of the day until the draft came. So the Giants would know exactly what they’re doing as far as what the players and picks would be. They probably had it, but I wanted to make sure they had that. You certainly don’t do that with a few minutes left on the clock.”

Accorsi has since said that he knew the Chargers would call. In 2014, he told NJ.com that a media member told him San Diego planned to call halfway through the Giants’ 15-minute clock and “I’ll be darned, at almost the 7:30 minute mark” he got a call from Smith.

Smith — who says he’s never spoken about his “shadow” subterfuge before — didn’t name names. But when Accorsi heard the story, he tried connecting the dots.

“I have a feeling I know who he suspects there, because [Marty] Schottenheimer and I were really close. We are to this day. But I respected his integrity and he respected mine,” Accorsi said.

“[Marty and I] made an agreement in February that we were not going to speak with each other until the draft was over, because I didn’t want to implicate him in any way whatsoever. So we did not talk. We barely said hello to each other at the league meetings. We wanted to stay above reproach.

“So I don’t know if that’s who he was referring to, but the person who called me was a member of the national media. That person wasn’t in San Diego at that time. Now maybe that person he suspected told the person who told me. I’m not a detective. The person who was in that room couldn’t have been the one who told me, whoever it was.”

The two former executives have different opinions about the effectiveness of Smith’s “shadow” strategy, though. Accorsi says they didn’t need extra time to prepare for a trade — the Giants already knew who and what they would and wouldn’t trade. As long as defensive end Osi Umenyiora wasn’t one of the Chargers’ demands, they could get a deal done quickly.

But the deal was reached so quickly that Smith felt confident the Giants already knew the phone was going to ring.

“It came together so fast. So fast. It was almost comical,” Smith said. “It was very much to my liking, and for fun I also threw out Osi’s name again for Ernie and he [outburst] and I laughed to break the ice because it was a dealbreaker. I said, ‘I’m just kidding Ernie, now how much time do we have? Minutes?’ and boom, there it was.”

“We knew what we were going to give,” Accorsi said. “We had our own meetings. We were willing to give them our No. 1 and the other various draft choices that we gave. We just weren’t giving up a pass rusher. So it didn’t make any difference. I needed about three seconds to make that decision.

“So when he asked for next year’s No. 1, I said yes right away, because we had already decided that was the going rate.”

The final agreement was a swap of the two quarterbacks — Manning and Rivers — along with the Giants’ 2004 third-, 2005 first-, and 2005 fifth-round picks sent to the Chargers. San Diego turned those picks into kicker Nate Kaeding, linebacker Shawne Merriman, and offensive tackle Roman Oben (via trade), respectively.

Smith didn’t have to trade Manning. He could’ve avoided him and drafted Philip Rivers with the No. 1 pick instead. He also could’ve dug in his heels and made Manning choose between playing in San Diego or sitting out a year and re-entering the NFL Draft in 2005.

How it played out instead worked out very well for the Chargers.

“When I heard emphatically from Tom Condon and Archie Manning ‘don’t take us,’ that hit me — call me a traditionalist — it hit me the wrong way,” Smith said. “I decided I was not going to play this game with them and I flipped it, in my view, to an unknown where they didn’t know what I’m going to do or how this is going to unfold — they really didn’t.

“[The trade] was the most satisfying moment for me in my career and I really mean that. I would say that if I was ever fortunate to win a Super Bowl, I’m sure it would’ve trumped that, but I don’t know that. I gotta tell you there was a lot of highs and lows in the business, but that moment was the greatest high for me as an executive for an organization.”

The Chargers had their first of seven consecutive winning seasons in 2004, and it started with the trade.

“It galvanized our football team, galvanized our community, and brought us together like you wouldn’t believe,” Smith said. “Then we went on to have a run of somewhat success — no world championship — but we flipped it, got a few players, and went on a bit of a run. I’m disappointed we couldn’t do anything.

“And the Giants are very happy as well, because Ernie got his quarterback and he went on to multiple championships.”

The Giants went 6-10 in Manning’s first season with the team. Three years later, New York won Super Bowl 42 and Manning was named MVP of the game. Four years later, Manning won another ring and Super Bowl MVP award. Accorsi didn’t need those results to validate his decision to make the trade, though.

“I never looked at the trade like it was a win for us,” Accorsi said. “I came into the league in 1970 [with the Baltimore Colts] and Johnny Unitas was the quarterback and he won the Super Bowl for us that year. I had nothing to do with it, but I was spoiled for life on the importance of a quarterback ... So I knew the value of a quarterback, but to me, I never got caught up in the ratings and stats. You pick a quarterback to win championships. Obviously he can’t do it alone, he’s got to be surrounded.

“So if Eli wouldn’t have won a championship, I’d probably feel a little unfulfilled. But he won two and was the MVP of both Super Bowls, so I think we feel good about it. But I never thought about as winning the trade. Frankly, I think all three of those quarterbacks (including Roethlisberger) were ideal for their franchises and they’ve all done great.”

Manning wasn’t the first player to ask a team not to pick him. In 1983, Stanford quarterback John Elway told the Baltimore Colts — then run by Accorsi, who was the team’s general manager — not to draft him with the No. 1 pick. They did anyway and he was later traded to the Denver Broncos.

When Auburn running back Bo Jackson was picked first by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 1986 NFL Draft, he refused to play for the team and played professional baseball instead. A year later, Tampa Bay’s rights to Jackson were forfeited and the Raiders picked him late in the 1987 NFL Draft.

But 15 years after Manning’s request of the Chargers, no player has followed a similar blueprint. The pair of retired executives don’t think their situation will end up being unique, though.

“Oh, I think It’ll happen again,” Smith said. “I mean why not? History tells us it pops up. Bo Jackson — I don’t know all the circumstances — but that was him saying, ‘I’m not going.’ I certainly do know about the Baltimore one. [Elway’s agent] Marvin Demoff, who was a very powerful Tom Condon type of guy, and [Elway’s] father who hated the coach, Frank Kush. So there’s the basis of it all. It went to the ‘I’m not playing there’ rhetoric and Marvin Demoff said, ‘I’ll take care of it.’ And sometimes you can do that.”

As the general manager of the Colts when Elway refused to play in Baltimore, Accorsi knows better than anyone that the situation could happen again.

“I don’t know why it hasn’t happened since. I don’t think it’s anything more than circumstantial,” Accorsi said. “I mean Elway happened in 1983 and this one happened in 2004 — that’s 21 years apart. It has to be the circumstances. Players can leverage, I mean they still do it. Giancarlo Stanton did it with the Miami Marlins and the Yankees. Players can still leverage in certain situations.”

The 2019 NFL offseason saw Antonio Brown force his way out of a Steelers uniform and into the waiting arms of the Raiders. Le’Veon Bell also signed a four-year, $52.5 million deal with the Jets after sitting out an entire season to avoid the franchise tag. Players taking power and leverage into their own hands isn’t going anywhere.

It’s a little odd that Manning — arguably the most “aw shucks” quarterback in the NFL — was the last No. 1-overall pick to force his way out of franchise. But with two Super Bowl MVPs to his name, every Giants’ passing record, and well over $200 million in career earnings, it certainly worked out.

The Chargers also got a quarterback who rewrote the franchise record books. And even if Rivers still hasn’t won a Super Bowl, he has eight Pro Bowl nods — double Manning’s total. The team also got three-time Pro Bowl linebacker Shawne Merriman, and two-time Pro Bowl kicker Nate Kaeding, to boot.

The drama of the 2004 NFL Draft was a roller coaster of misinformation and awkward moments. Fifteen years later, it’s just a brief, fleeting chapter in the stories of two passers who will likely land in the Hall of Fame. Ultimately, both teams got what they wanted: a franchise quarterback and sustained success. In the words of Smith, “everyone got on with their lives.”