On Sunday, Peyton Manning and the Broncos scored a late touchdown that effectively clinched the victory in Super Bowl 50, and CBS’s cameras were focused on the Manning family to capture their reaction. A Vine of that moment has since gone viral, thanks to the confused, blank stare on the face of Peyton’s brother, Eli. But TMZ caught up with the Giants quarterback, and Manning explained what caused the face that sparked countless Twitter jokes: He was trying to do math in his head.
“I was just focused on whether they’d go for two and uh, the defense had to step up and make some stops,” Eli told a cameraperson while riding an airport escalator. The Broncos, you see, had gone up 22-10 with the touchdown, and with a 12-point lead, it makes sense to attempt a two-point conversion: Had they kicked an extra point and gone up 13, in theory Carolina could have beaten them in regulation with two miracle touchdowns without needing to go for two themselves. And so Eli apparently was simply doing that math in his head while his family celebrated around him.
Now that that’s settled, let’s all focus instead on the most overlooked aspect of the clip: what Katie Baker described as the “no-look mother-son mid-five.” Perfectly executed, guys.
