'When do you know?': 20 years after Eli trade, Giants face another QB question in NFL Draft

I have not forgotten my lengthy 2018 phone conversation with former New York Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi that centered on the conviction he gained in his detailed college evaluation of Eli Manning.

I called Accorsi at his New York City home that February afternoon in between media sessions at the NFL's Scouting Combine while walking the hallways of the Indiana Convention Center leading to Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

More than a decade after the Giants made their move and traded up on draft day to select Manning, he was still their quarterback ‒ two Super Bowl MVP trophies and a journey filled with plenty of twists and turns later.

And I needed to know something from Accorsi, the man who engineered the franchise-altering deal for a quarterback he believed in, well before anyone else at the Giants did.

"When do you know?” Accorsi quipped, repeating the first question of that interview for The Record and NorthJersey.com six years ago. "It sounds funny, I'm telling you, it sounds smart, but you just do. There are no guarantees that you're going to be right, but it's a feeling. You do the work. You do all the homework. Then you trust what you see, what you feel, what you believe and you convince everyone else that you're right."

Twenty years later, the Giants are wrestling with another significant quarterback question in the NFL Draft with GM Joe Schoen staring at a similar circumstance Thursday night. The Giants have a veteran quarterback in Daniel Jones who is well-liked in the organization, with many still rooting for his success and hoping his best is what they saw two seasons ago on the road to the playoff victory in Minnesota.

The opportunity to draft a quarterback that can set a team up for a decade does not come around often, however.

Accorsi knew this, and as Schoen has done his homework on quarterbacks Drake Maye, J.J. McCarthy, Michael Penix, Bo Nix and others, the Giants have tried to give themselves every chance to come to the conclusion he did in 2004.

It's worth revisiting how that draft day trade for Manning went down, what led to Accorsi's unwavering belief in the player, the challenge of convincing Wellington Mara that it was the right move to draft over Kerry Collins, a quarterback he loved, and the decision that went a long way toward delivering the Giants two of the four Vince Lombardi trophies that are on display in the lobby of their training facility.

'You can't overpay DiMaggio'

For years, critics complained Accorsi had given up way too much in his blockbuster trade for Manning. But he always dismissed such talk by pointing to the importance of a franchise quarterback, and the difference that great players can make for any team.

“You can’t give up too much for John Elway,” Accorsi said. “You can’t overpay [Joe] DiMaggio. If you ever get the chance to get a quarterback you think is great, go get him. "

Accorsi believed in the late-game legend of Manning, and he did his best to sell everyone on the magic before any of it played out in the NFL. His scouting report of Manning from his time at Ole Miss became a fascinating part of Giants' history.

A veteran scout named Milt Davis had provided Accorsi a piece of advice when both were with the Colts ‒ then with respect to Johnny Unitas ‒ that ultimately played a part in Manning landing with Big Blue.

"What I learned about how you judge a quarterback [from Davis]: Can he take the team down the field with the championship on the line and get it in the end zone?" Accorsi recalled.

Then, with a nod to that famous scouting report, selling the Giants on their future franchise quarterback, Accorsi repeated without hesitation: "In my opinion, most of all, he has that quality you can’t define. Call it magic."

Watch here: Our 'All In' Giants podcast show will be live from Big Blue's NFL Draft Party

The challenge of convincing The Duke

Giants co-owner and team president John Mara will never forget how apprehensive his father was about giving up on a quarterback he liked, respected and believed in. Sounds familiar for the younger Mara and Jones, but in part because of that experience, he said he would give Schoen and Brian Daboll the green light to draft a quarterback Thursday night if they shared such a conviction.

Accorsi and Tom Coughlin were sold. Either Manning or Ben Roethlisberger would be the target.

Wellington Mara needed to be convinced that it was time to move on from Collins, who helped carry The Duke's team to the Super Bowl just four years earlier, albeit in a losing effort.

“Ernie had convinced me long before the draft that Eli was the guy. I was thrilled with that,” John Mara told The Record and NorthJersey.com in a 2016 interview. “One of the last hurdles was convincing my father on that because he did not want to give up on Kerry, and he knew if we brought in a young guy, that could mean the end [of Collins with the Giants]. Ultimately, we did what was best for the team."

Accorsi met first-year Chargers general manager A.J. Smith at the league meetings in March 2004. Word began circulating around the league that Manning didn’t want to play in San Diego, and Accorsi had experience being in that position. He was a rookie GM in Baltimore with the No. 1 pick in the 1983 draft when Elway, the top QB in the class, decided he would not play for the Colts.

Back then, Accorsi did not want to be known as the man who bypassed on such a talent, so he drafted Elway anyway. Colts ownership traded Elway to the Broncos a week later.

So when he initially engaged Smith, there was a significant sticking point. The Giants were not dealing Osi Umenyiora despite repeated inquiries from the Chargers.

Waiting to exhale at the 11th hour

Fast forward to draft day and the Chargers went silent. They drafted Manning, and there was no guarantee the Giants would get another chance to consummate a deal. Accorsi told the team’s representative on site at the draft to write Roethlisberger’s name on the selection card that would be submitted to the league, just in case.

All the while, Accorsi tried to stay optimistic that Smith would eventually come back to the Giants to re-ignite talks.

Just as the Giants were going on the clock at No. 4, Accorsi left the draft war room and headed to his office, waiting for Smith to call. If he thought they were close, the Giants would take Philip Rivers for San Diego, then make the swap for Manning. They'd take Roethlisberger otherwise.

Accorsi was joined by Wellington Mara, co-owner Bob Tisch and three of Wellington’s sons – John, Chris and Frank – and Jerry Reese, who was the director of player personnel. With about seven minutes left on the clock, the phone rang and Smith was on the other end of the line.

The Chargers ended up sending the No. 1 overall pick to the Giants in exchange for Rivers, the Giants' third round pick in 2004 along with their first and fifth round selections in the 2005 draft. The Chargers' insistence to include the fifth round pick initially angered John Mara, but the Giants relented, knowing a fifth-round pick could not be what kept them from acquiring a potential franchise QB.

That 2005 pick from the Giants to the Chargers wound up going to the Buccaneers in a trade for offensive lineman Roman Oben, who was originally drafted by the Giants in 1996.

How much is too much?

Schoen was Buffalo Bills GM Brandon Beane's right hand man in Buffalo in 2018 when they traded up twice in order to select a franchise quarterback, Josh Allen.

"It’s one of those things, if you can get a franchise quarterback and he turns out to be a franchise quarterback, it’d be a good move," Beane said at this year's Combine. "We got criticized a little bit for how much we gave up for Josh and I’m like, ‘Well, if he doesn’t work out, I’m not going to be here anyway. And if he does work out, nobody’s gonna give a sh*t.’"

What worked for Accorsi and Beane is not a slam dunk, of course. Former Giants GM Dave Gettleman claimed to have the same conviction with Jones, but that has not worked out to the extent the Giants hoped. He did not have to trade up, though, and it's likely Schoen will have to travel down that road if he is to get his preferred choice at QB.

The identity of that player remains somewhat of a mystery, even if Maye and McCarthy would appear to be the likeliest of prospects to fit that profile. Schoen goes on the clock Thursday night, and the Giants' future at the most important position in sports could be hanging in the balance yet again, just as it did two decades ago.

"So much goes into building a championship team, we all know that," Accorsi said.

He paused before ending that phone interview with a quote that resonated as an undeniable exclamation point: "But you don't get there without the quarterback. You need the quarterback, and if you're right, everybody wins."

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NY Giants: QB or no QB a draft question again 20 years after Eli trade