EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Eli Manning's most memorable performance thus far in 2013 had nothing to do with throwing a football.
Manning and his brother, Peyton, star in a hilarious new commercial for DirecTV. Wearing clothes that might have been rejected by 1980s musicians, wigs and lots makeup, the two quarterback-playing brothers are rappers singing, "Football on Your Phone," a catchy tune certain to be a hit with football fans everywhere. The spot promotes DirecTV's new service, which allows fans to watch NFL games on a mobile device with Sunday Ticket.
The spot, which opens with the brothers getting perms in a hair salon, was getting a lot of play – and a lot of reaction – in the Giants locker room.
"I think a lot of the guys were surprised about it and so it got some laughs," Manning said. "I got some heat for it as well."
The Manning brothers have made commercials together in the past, but none of their earlier efforts demonstrated their high embarrassment threshold like this one.
"We had fun," Manning said. "Peyton and I had fun doing the skit, and obviously it got a lot of laughs together - just every time we kind of looked at each other and wondered what we were doing. We got some laughs, so it was a fun day."
As it was today, when Manning's teammates got their first look at the commercial.
"I thought he did well," said guard Chris Snee, one of Manning's closest friends on the team. "It was funny. I knew nothing about it until I came into the locker room, but guys were laughing watching it on their phones. Then I saw it and now it's all over the T.V. It was pretty funny."
Asked if he had a favorite line, Snee said, "I just laugh at the way he looks."
"(The players) are singing it and they're picking on him," said running back David Wilson. "They're giving him a hard time about it. When he pulled up in the big purple car, that is also funny because that was unexpected. It caught me off guard."
Manning said the commercial was "knocked out pretty quickly" during one day of taping in New Orleans, their hometown.
"It was all fun and for a few hours, (I) just said, 'I'll go with the flow here and see what happens and hopefully it will turn out well," Manning said. "I thought it turned out well."
So well that it could lead to a second career?
"No," he said. "I think I'll stay with my day job and keep playing football for as long as possible. (I'm) a one-hit wonder, probably."