Cooper Manning sits at the kid table

New York Times, why do you do the ESPN thing? A story about Eli's closeness to a family member? It seems the Mannings are not just Eli, Peyton, Archie, and a cast of supporting characters. Well, they are, but those supporting characters, as we have learned from shows like Celebrity Apprentice and Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, really any celebrity show with the likes of some guy who did the lighting for Jay-Z one Saturday night in Los Angeles when his regular light guy was sick, they kind of have lives too. Turns out, the Manning duo was not immaculately conceived, miraculously born from Archie's womb. There is a mom who, apparently had more to do with raising Eli than Archie. No, this isn't made up. She actually exists, and has even been seen outside the Manning compound once or twice. I mean, it's Archie's arm and other physical gifts that make Eli an NFL quarterback. What else is there to raising a Manning, you ask? Yeah, I ask that too. But it was mom there when Peyton and Cooper went to college. What's that? Didn't know there was a Cooper Manning? Cooper played high school football, well, but was diagnosed with spinal stenosis after high school and never played in college. No, no. He probably doesn't cry himself to sleep every night. Yeah, most people don't know he exists, because really, he might as well not. ESPN left him out of that Sportscenter commercial and everything.

Need anyone else for the family picture? No?

So really, the joke of it all is that the media has been running with the Manning family thing for, well, forever. No, Cooper Manning doesn't play NFL football, nor does Olivia Manning, which makes them no different from the rest of the brothers, sisters and mothers who casual fans don't know exist. But when media tits embrace the nonsense that the Mannings are all just a corn-fed, football-playing dynasty, not only taking an interest in the family element, but amplifying and inflating it while simultaneously pretending the non-football elements don't exist, or worse, don't matter, it is hypocrisy. To expect anyone would, in most circumstances, pay any attention to an athlete's family is unreasonable. But when outlets like ESPN promote the Manning name, The Manning Family (Archie, Peyton, Eli), on a semi-nightly basis, seemingly relishing every single Manning achievement as though it were accomplished by an ESPN family member, it is reasonable for them to acknowledge that other Mannings exist. If the family angle is going to be so wholeheartedly pursued, then the whole family angle needs to be pursued. Instead, Olivia and Cooper are footnotes to the Manning story, superfluous and parenthetical, meant for stories written by girls and printed on day 8 of the Super Bowl break (see above Times link).

Do I really give a shit about Cooper or Olivia Manning? No. Should any of us? Probably not, aside from their being fellow humans and all. But I don't give a shit about any of the Mannings any more than I give a shit about anyone else not an actual member of my family or friend. I don't want to see video of Cooper or Olivia in the booth at a football game, but I don't want to see Archie or Peyton in that same booth either. So I guess the moral of the rant then has to be...QUIT FEEDING US MANNING FAMILY BULLSHIT! I LIKE FOOTBALL!