Eli Manning Teams Up With Corona Extra To Kick Off The 2023 NFL Season

The 2023 NFL season is officially underway. And to commemorate the occasion, two-time Super Bowl champion, and New York Giants legend, Eli Manning has teamed up with Corona Extra for a football-themed promotion. It’s called the “Fine Life Playbook,” a user-generated digital round up of fun activities that fans can do to promote greater enjoyment during game time. And you can win special prizes just by participating.

Here’s how it works: from now through November 17th, 2023, football fans are invited to reply to a designated contest tweet from @CoronaUSA, using a catchy name and description for some lighthearted maneuver that should part of the playbook. Weekly winners, chosen by “Coach Eli” receive a kit which includes Corona football merchandise, a signed jersey by the former superstar quarterback and other assorted football-related swag.

Manning recently sat down, over Zoom, to discuss the partnership in further detail. In addition to his own personal go-tos from the Fine Life Playbook, he talks about shifting from interviewee to interviewer—as host of his eponymous web-series (and the ManningCast simulcast he co-hosts with his brother Peyton, during Monday Night Football). And he reveals the celebrity with whom he’d most like to share a Corona Extra.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell us about some of the plays that are in the Fine Life Playbook.

Eli Manning: “My favorite is the ‘Fumblebrewski.’ It’s when you distract your friend so you can grab the last Corona. Like… ‘Hey, what is that a dinosaur over there?’ Then there’s the ‘Glued to the Game.’ That’s when you’re watching the game and you reach and feel for a Corona with your hands without taking your eyes off the action.”

If you could grab a Corona with absolutely any celebrity out there who is it going to be?

EM: “I like to think of New York sports legend. I’d go with a Giants player—Lawrence Taylor. Knicks player—I’m going Ewing. For baseball..hmm…Jeter? I’ve had a beer with Jeter so I gotta think of someone new…Don Mattingly! He’d throw back a few Coronas for sure. Maybe, Mattingly and [Wade] Boggs, there would be some good stories there.”

You’ve got your own show, the very aptly named, Eli Manning Show. What lessons have you taken from all these years of being the one interviewed, now that you’re the one doing the interviewing?

EM: “I just try to get right to the question. I try not to set it up too much. Here’s the question, let them go. And then try and have a smart alec response to it, in some way. Or…before I ask the question I try and make fun of myself and then ask the question so that I can loosen them up a little bit. Always be a little self-deprecating.”

Is there any guest that you’ve really wanted on the show but you just can’t land?

EM: “Yeah, we were super close to having the Jonas Brothers a couple of times. They’re Giants fans. We had Jeter, we had Strahan, we had Henrik Lundqvist, a lot of the New York athletes, that’s when we have some great conversation—it’s a field I know a lot more about. When I’m doing a singer or an actor or some rapper who I’ve never listened to their songs before, I don’t have a whole lot of questions to improvise with.”

You’ve got three daughters, you’d probably be quite the hero if you could get Taylor Swift on the program.

EM: “I don’t think I have a shot of getting Taylor Swift on my show. But I can dream. I gotta pull some strings and maybe start throwing Peyton’s name around more often.”

He’s been invited to be an honorary professor at his alma mater. If you’re invited to be a professor at Ole Miss, what would you be teaching?

EM: “I never thought of that before. If there’s some sort of time management class, I think I’d be really good at that.”

Corona has always leaned into a beach aesthetic, of course. What’s Eli Manning’s ideal beach setting?

EM: “We go to the beach and I have four kids. So I have this idea of, like, sitting on a chair, music playing, having a Corona. But in reality it’s—I have seven boogie boards, and I’m in the water the entire time getting them set up, and my backs to the waves, I’m getting crushed by the waves, I’m losing my sunglasses. Then it’s time to go and I come back exhausted and all the kids run up from the beach and I’m looking back and there’s eight chairs, 27 buckets, coolers and I spend the next hour lugging stuff back from the beach. It’s a real relaxing afternoon. But I have dreams of the fine life—for me, it’s in the Bahamas.”

Give us a prediction for the New York Giants this season.

EM: “It’s going to be an awesome year. I’m excited. They’re hungry; they’re committed. They’re not satisfied with last year. They know they need to make some improvements to be the caliber team they want to be. They re-signed the guys they needed to sign, so I think they’re set to have a great year. [Rookie wide receiver Jalin] Hyatt plays in fast-forward. So, that’s a good thing.”

So, 11-6?

EM: “Okay. We’ll take it.”