Over the coming days, ESNY staffers are going to share our favorite athletes. Why did we cheer for them? What about them made them our favorites?
When I first began following football back in — checks notes — the mid-2000s, Eli was just starting out. He wasn’t the Super Bowl MVP quarterback that he ended up becoming, but moreso the novice signal-caller seemingly addicted to throwing interceptions.
But regardless of the early struggles, the air in East Rutherford was different when the Eli era commenced. And I grew up through all of it.