Fredo Wins!

One of the funniest things my friend Dina has ever said was that Eli Manning was the “Fredo” of the Manning family. Apparently, prior to this season, a lot of Giants fans felt that they had the “weak” brother playing for their favorite team.

Now, I have to confess — I have never watched “The Godfather” movies. Not a one of ‘em. I’ve seen fragments, but I’ve never felt compelled to buy or rent ‘em. But the Fredo Corleone Wikipedia entry clarifies Dina’s Fredo analogy:

In Puzo’s novel, Fredo was always thought of in the Corleone crime Family as the weakest of the three Corleone brothers, and therefore was given its unimportant businesses to run. Despite being a weak and sickly child, however, Fredo is the most obedient and dutiful of the Corleone children.

In a pivotal scene in the novel and film, Fredo attempts to immediately retaliate after the attempted assassination of his father on a New York street by men working for drug kingpin Virgil Sollozzo. However, he fumbles with the gun, drops it, and is unable to return fire. He then sits on the street curb next to his unconscious father and weeps. In the novel, he becomes quite sick after his father’s shooting, going into shock after the incident, speculated by Michael and Tom to be due to his great regard for their father and seeing him get shot.

After Sonny’s assassination and Vito’s death, the younger Michael is appointed head of the family over Fredo, causing a deep rift between the two brothers which is expanded upon in Coppola’s later sequels to the first film adaptation.

Incidentally, if you watch the ESPN commercial showing Eli and Peyton picking on each other while going on a tour of the studio, you’ll notice a not-quite-as-athletic older brother, Cooper Manning walking ahead of them. His story is interesting enough to merit reading for yourself…

6 February 2008 | NFL | Comments