Historic Mississippi Newspaper Seemingly Intentionally Tricked People Into Thinking Archie Manning Died With Quirky Headline For Clicks

Archie Manning, the former NFL quarterback and father of Peyton and Eli (and Cooper) Manning, is alive and well at the age of 75 years old — which, if he were running for President, would also make him the youngest candidate!

Based on a recent headline published by the long-running Mississippi newspaper the Clarion Ledger, you’d be forgiven for believing otherwise.

Despite the fact that Archie Manning celebrated his 75th birthday in mid-May, the Clarion Ledger published an article on Tuesday, July 2 titled “Archie Manning: Ole Miss football legend is 75: Dad of Eli, Peyton, grandfather of Arch.”

On the newspaper’s official Twitter account, the headline was written: “Archie Manning: Ole Miss football legend is 75: Dad of Eli, Peyton, grandfather of Arch.”

The reason that the Clarion Ledger’s headlines are so misleading is that this is the sort of copy used when someone has passed away.

“Why did they write this like he died? What the hell is this headline?” read a viral tweet from a prominent sports media personality.

“Quietly the funniest thing about this is that it’s not even his birthday. There’s no reason to post this!” said one reply to the tweet.

“This is the oddest way to describe someone’s age that isn’t an obituary I’ve ever seen,” another Twitter user said.

“You can’t have headlines like this for alive people,” said another response.

Even former NFL quarterback Chase Daniel chimed in to express his confusion and concern.

Given that the Clarion Ledger is the second-oldest company in the entire state of Missouri and was founded in 1837, it’s certainly fair to reason that the publishers knew exactly what they were doing by using this sort of sentence structure, perhaps using the specter of Manning’s death to generate clicks.

“Congratulations Clarion Ledger. You got a click out of me because I legitimately and depressingly thought this was the obituary of Archie Manning,” a frustrated football fan posted.

Manning was drafted by the New Orleans Saints with the #2 overall pick in the 1971 draft. Manning spent 11 years with the Saints and was named to two Pro Bowls during that time before spending the final two seasons of his NFL career with the Houston Oilers and Minnesota Vikings.