Grayson Weir
Videos by OutKick
Eli Manning is one of the funniest sports personalities that doesn’t get enough love for how truly hilarious that he is. His most recent shenanigans are some of his best.
At some point over the summer, Penn State football held walk-on tryouts for the fall. Manning decided to get in on the action, but there was only one problem— he’s Eli Manning.
Not only does he have one of the most recognizable faces in sports, he doesn’t have any eligibility. To solve that issue, Manning drew inspiration from Matthew McConaughey’s character in Dazed and Confused and went undercover.
With long hair and a mustache like McConaughey’s in the movie, he arrived at the tryout under the name ‘Chad Powers.’ Head coach James Franklin (and likely a few others) were in on the stunt.
The other PSU staffers and coaches didn’t know that Eli Manning was undercover.
As for his persona, Manning pretended that he was home schooled in Pennsylvania. He, obviously, looked older than everyone else and said jokingly, that if Brady can play to 44, then Chad Powers can play to 26.
(Manning refers to himself in the third person as Chad Powers throughout the day and its hilarious.)
During the testing portion, Manning Powers did not fare so well. Eli was never the most athletic of the Manning family.
However, as he starting to spin the pill, Powers turned heads amongst the coaches. He was dropping dimes and throwing darts left and right, because, well, he was actually a future Hall of Famer.
“When you look up ‘arm talent’ in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of Chad.”
At the end, before closing out the tryouts, Franklin came out to discuss the results. He informed Powers that he did not have any eligibility left, at which point Manning revealed himself.
Take a look:
Fun piece.
The Mannings are funny, they can act. Although I did not see it from Eli before he retired. Good stuff.
Strong.