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They Have Met the Enemy in New England, and His Name Is Eli

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — At the Faneuil Hall Marketplace in downtown Boston, outside Fenway Park and even on Martha’s Vineyard, seven miles off Cape Cod, stores for years routinely sold T-shirts that read, “I Hate Eli Manning.”

On social media and fan-generated blogs devoted to the New England Patriots, any ranking of the most disliked Patriots opponents habitually lists Manning in the top three spots. Not surprisingly, the hundreds who eagerly comment on the rankings happily break down the depths of New England fans’ contempt for Manning. (They do not think much of his brother Peyton, either.