E-Mail This Article to a Friend A message for Manning BY MITCH KRPATA

Complaining about spoiled, bratty athletes and their gargantuan egos is becoming almost as tiresome as Curt Schilling’s Dunkin’ Donuts commercial, but I’m nothing if not predictable. As we head into the weekend of the NFL draft, the case of Eli Manning versus the San Diego Chargers warrants special focus.

Everyone’s used to millionaire athletes griping because they’re not making enough millions — see the hullabaloo surrounding Pats cornerback Ty Law for a prime example — but in recent months this sense of entitlement has infected student athletes as well. Maurice Clarett may have had a case against the NFL, since he desired only to play somewhere, anywhere in the pros. Eli Manning, on the other hand, has decided the draft is set up to serve him and not the teams. As such, he’s demanded that the San Diego Chargers, who hold the number-one pick, not draft him. He’d rather play for the New York Giants.

The idea behind the NFL draft is very simple: the worst teams get the best prospects, with the goal of creating greater competitive balance in the league. No one should need to explain why this is good for the sport and for the league, but take a look at the Montreal Expos to see what happens when a sports franchise has no chance to win anything. In an ideal situation, a player like Manning can be the missing piece needed to vault a team into the playoffs and energize its fan base.

Via a series of shady back-room dealings, it appears Manning has made clear he doesn’t see it that way. Trying to follow the hearsay and conjecture in this story is like reading a James Ellroy novel. As far as I can tell, Manning’s agent told the Chargers that Manning’s father did not want his son to play for them. Oof. I might have gotten something wrong there, but believe me, there’s no way you’d be able to tell. This is the fifth-grade study-hall method of communication.

It’s funny how all parties involved are stumbling over each other to see who can look the worst. Eli’s rationale is that it’s his life and his career, so no one should be able to tell him where to play. He fails to realize that the NFL is an industry like any other, and his choice boils down to playing football or not. If he doesn’t want to play for the team that drafts him, he can always put that hard-earned marketing degree to good use and see what options he has. Despite what he may think, Manning is not in the driver’s seat on this one.

Telling the Chargers how to conduct their draft was classless. But it was certainly no more boneheaded than San Diego’s general manager telling the press exactly what was going on. One can only speculate as to the team’s aim in bringing this issue to the nation’s attention, but I’m guessing they thought they could shame the Mannings into dropping their, er, "request."

Instead, they gave Archie Manning the chance to show up on SportsCenter last night and do the "aw, shucks" routine, the one employed by so many US presidents to feign a hayseed likeability that belies a cunning mind and a black heart pumping the harvested blood of the innocent — sorry, I got distracted. The point is, in the elder Manning’s interview with Dan Patrick, he came across as bewildered country folk, unequipped to cope with the wheelin’ and dealin’ of hotshot city slickers. His mantra was that he’d never do anything to disrespect the NFL, and he seemed outright confused that a simple appeal had blown up into something dangerously close to a scandal.

Give the man credit: he played the part well. But the simple fact is that the Chargers need a quarterback, and Eli Manning is the best available. It’s their right to draft him, although now they’re in an unfortunate position. If they take Manning, they’re stuck with a player who clearly wants to be elsewhere. If they don’t, they’ll look like suckers who caved to a prima donna before he’d even proven himself a superstar. It’s a classic "damned if you do, damned if you don’t" situation.

The real losers in all of this are the Chargers’ fans. The contempt Manning has shown them is unforgivable. Whether he flips them the bird on his way to the Meadowlands or takes the field at Qualcomm Stadium on September 19 (the Chargers’ home opener), he’s done nothing to deserve their respect or loyalty.

Of course, if he does end up leading the Chargers to playoffs or beyond, this mess will be forgotten. That’s the way it works in sports. And he’s already getting an object lesson in suffering the slings and arrows of haughty sportswriters, something that will serve him well if he ends up with the Giants. But before the draft has even begun, it seems no one — not his family, not his agent, not us lowly scribes — is sending him the message he really needs to hear:

Hey, Eli, shut up and play!

"Sporting Eye" runs Mondays and Fridays on BostonPhoenix.com. Mitch Krpata can be reached at mkrpata[a]phx.com