No hottie is going to hex Eli Manning during the biggest game of his career -- he's made sure of that.
The Giant quarterback has told his college sweetheart and fiancee, Abby McGrew, to get layered up for tonight's bitter-cold playoff game in Green Bay -- because she has to brave the elements and suffer through the action from stadium seats if he's going to win.
Eli believes he's jinxed when McGrew watches his games from the cozy warmth of a stadium suite, Manning's oldest brother, Cooper, told The Post.
Those times McGrew has watched her man play from a suite, the Jints have lost.
"Abby almost always sits in the stands, but I guess once or twice she was invited to sit in a suite and things didn't end well," Cooper told The Post.
So Eli took steps to ensure he's not the next Tony Romo.
"In the spirit of superstition, Eli told her, 'I don't care if it's 4 degrees in Green Bay, you're sitting in the stands,'" laughed Cooper, who sells oil stocks and lives in New Orleans, the Manning clan's hometown.
So, Cooper said, Abby will be in the stands tonight, shivering amid the cheeseheads at frozen Lambeau Field in wind chills expected to dip below zero degrees.
McGrew, a pretty Nashville native who met Manning when they were students at Ole Miss, is happy to oblige.
"She's buying into it," said Cooper, who called McGrew "a great gal."
"She understands it," he said. "Eli told her to get her thermals ready.
"... Anything for a 'W,'" he joked.
Of course, maybe once McGrew feels the frigid Green Bay temps, she'll run for cover.
Manning and the gritty Giants are only one win away from a trip to Super Bowl XLII in Phoenix.
But if the youngest Manning brother, 27, is nervous about taking the field against the Packers in the NFC Championship game tonight, he's not showing it.
"'E' is a pretty tough read," said Cooper, 33, whose own promising football career as a wide receiver was cut short when he was diagnosed as having a congenital spinal condition during his freshman year at the University of Mississippi.
He says Eli is a "sweet, quiet guy" who is "very even keeled. It's hard to get a reaction out of him. It's really hard to get a temperature change, which, in this case, I think is really good."
Cooper said his kid brother was kept cool as a cucumber after last week's victory over the Dallas Cowboys, his second consecutive playoff victory.
"Someone asked me if I wanted to go in the locker room, which I normally never do, but this time I said, 'Yeah. I want to go see him,' " Cooper said.
"So I see him, and I kind of have this giddy, happy reaction, and he was kind of, like, calm down there. I went to go hug him, and he was just, like, 'Hey Coop. How are y'all?' He's so level headed (that) he kind of brings you back down to earth."
The low-key Eli is quite a contrast to Romo. The Cowboy quarterback was hit with harsh criticism after paparazzi caught him and gal pal Jessica Simpson frolicking in Mexico days before the Giant game.
Frustrated fans questioned his focus and blamed the worst game of his career -- a 10-6 loss against the Philadelphia Eagles on Dec. 16 -- on Simpson's being in the stands and distracting him.
Off-the-field drama is not for Eli. "He's not wired that way," Cooper said. "He's very focused."
The Manning family is on cloud nine over Eli's success, but the playoffs have been "bittersweet" so far for the New Orleans clan. Manning's brother Peyton and his defending Super Bowl-champion Colts saw their season end last week in a surprising loss to the San Diego Chargers.
Cooper said he didn't believe Peyton, 31, would attend the Giant game tonight.
Cooper says he was extremely nervous last week watching the Giants play the Cowboys but thinks he'll be calmer today.
"The Giants really aren't supposed to be where they are right now," he said. "So right now ... we're playing with house money.
"I don't think there's a single game Eli's been to, much less played in, that's this big," he added. "So this is definitely as big a stage as he's ever seen. But I think he's going to do just fine."
Here's hoping his fiancee's suffering in Green Bay's arctic temps is the good-luck charm Eli thinks it is.
12 Replies
4022 Views