The picture of Eli happily browsing George III chinoiserie tripod tables is so un-Manning-like that it actually manages to be a little startling. It just makes no sense within the Good Father/Good Son landscape where we almost always situate the family. More than that: It has nothing to do with football. It’s not #Sports and #America; it’s a person doing a weird thing he likes. And maybe that’s the only way to see Eli — as the irreconcilable human element in the Manning allegory, the flaw in the narrative that reminds you that the talking heads’ way of looking at the world doesn’t, and can’t, contain the whole story. He seems inscrutable to us not because of some vector in a sports-media trope but because he’s a person who seems inscrutable. He seems un-Manning-like because “Manning-like” is a thing we made up. Life isn’t a draft-day debate segment, even if it sometimes looks like one on TV.

—The Secret of Eli Manning I wish I could write like this.