Chad Powers is the undercover quarterback that former New York Giants star Eli Manning created in one of his episodes of Eli's Places on ESPN. Manning wanted to know what the walk-on process was like and decided to go undercover to see.
He sat in a make-up chair and had his face put on, got decked out in the right gear and then proceeded to meet with Penn State coaches to be put through his paces.
In the segment, Manning AKA Chad Powers can be seen going through various quarterback drills and was seen launching some deep balls to his receivers. Several coaches were rather taken back by the "college" quarterback that they thought they would see, as Manning is clearly older than a college player.
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Powers even ran the much famed 40-yard dash and his time was less than ideal, running it in 5.49 seconds. Despite that, though, the coaches liked what they saw from Powers (of course they would he is a two-time Super Bowl champion).
Manning wanted to see what the process was like and he got a first-hand account of what college athletes go through when trying to make a football team.
Chad Powers didn't quite get selected for Penn State
We clearly know that Powers was not going to get selected to play for Penn state for obvious reasons. But when he found out that he would not make the team and his identity was revealed, no one on the field could believe that it was two-time Super Bowl champion Eli Manning, after all, they thought he was just another player trying to make the team.
The experience has surely lifted the lid on what it is like for college athletes trying to make their way in their chosen sport and it comes with a lot of hard work and dedication.
The idea for Chad Powers was to give an insight for Manning, along with viewers of exactly what it is like for walk-ons. The segment ended with lots of laughs and photos, but sometimes for players it doesn't end like that.
Chad Powers is now famous for Eli Manning and even got a mention on Monday Night Football between himself and his older brother Peyton.
The segment has gone down a treat with NFL fans as we got to see another side of Eli and we hope that there are many more segments like this in the future.
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