--- description: Giants quarterback Eli Manning has thrown off Peyton's shadow title: Super Brother image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6e48e7980aeb259b/698a44bce6e84a60152b0fa1/360_culeli_0206.jpg?branch=production&width=750&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [U.S.](/section/us/) # Super Brother by [Sean Gregory](/author/sean-gregory/) Feb 6, 2012 5:00 AM CUT  Eli Manning Eli ManningChris Trotman / Getty Images by [Sean Gregory](/author/sean-gregory/) Feb 6, 2012 5:00 AM CUT If Eli Manning had summoned his big brother during the NFC championship game on Jan. 22, no one would have blamed him. All day, the San Francisco 49ers’ defense pounded Eli into the soupy Candlestick Park grass like a horseshoe stake, sacking him six times. After being hit yet again late in the game, he called a time-out to regroup, with sod stuck to his helmet and his shoulder pads undone, looking like a rookie who had just been hazed. You couldn’t picture Peyton Manning, one of the most competitive athletes of our time, being so calm if he were taking such a beating. When any of Peyton’s Indianapolis Colts screws up, he scolds them, dishing out verbal sacks to offending offensive linemen. Eli delivers no such beratings. Sure, you’ll see him give a stern lecture to a wayward wide receiver. But mostly he’s unruffled; he’s too busy running the offense. “Eli doesn’t have to show any false emotion,” says David Cutcliffe, Eli’s coach at Ole Miss, who remains close to his former star player. “What a gift that is. He never changes.” Only his stats do. By turning in an MVP-caliber regular season in which he threw for nearly 5,000 yards and led the surging New York Giants to a second Super Bowl in five years, Eli Manning is forever altering fans’ opinions of him and flipping the order of the names on the Manning marquee. On Feb. 5 in Indianapolis, New York faces the New England Patriots in a rematch of the 2008 Super Bowl: that year, the Giants spoiled New England’s perfect season, upsetting the Pats 17-14. Despite that win, when people talked about the Mannings, it was always Peyton and then Eli. Peyton was more than just the older bro; he was the superior quarterback by far. No more. Eli seems to be setting new marks every week. This year, he threw 15 fourth-quarter touchdown passes, breaking the record held by Baltimore Colts legend Johnny Unitas– and Indy Colts legend Peyton. Eli rises in the playoffs (the same can’t always be said for Peyton), and by beating the 49ers, he became the first quarterback to win five postseason road games. Now Peyton is recovering from a neck injury that cost him the season and pondering his future with the Colts. The team finished 2-14 without him this season and will almost certainly select Stanford standout QB Andrew Luck with the first pick in the draft. The Colts may even release Peyton to save some salary-cap cash. Meanwhile, little brother Eli will storm into Peytontown with a chance to win his second Super Bowl. If Eli beats the Pats again, he’ll be out from Peyton’s shadow forever–a hero to neglected little brothers everywhere. Eli has developed a distinctive style: smooth under pressure, often sidestepping onrushing defensive linemen before delivering a ball on target. Like Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Joe Montana, he’s a football Roger Federer, languid in movement, almost poetic, as opposed to Peyton’s Rafael Nadal, the snorting bull. New York fans were not always warm to Eli’s less-than-cosmopolitan demeanor, even in the years following his Super Bowl win. Big Apple sports-talk radio was ripe with Eli haters. Fans took his goofy streak–he likes antiquing, for example, and early in his career he would forget the start times of his games–and hangdog expressions as indifference, and they longed for Peyton’s intensity. But in football, as in any profession, once you get better at doing your job, people stop griping about how you do it. Funny: when you throw fewer interceptions, your former flaws are lauded as leadership. “Eli doesn’t say much,” says Giants safety Antrel Rolle. “When he says it, he means it. It’s coming from the heart.” Eli Manning has truly matured as team captain. Two days after New York beat San Francisco, he gave the team a speech: Prepare as if we’re playing the Pats during the Super Bowl’s off week, so that once we get to Indy, the media circus won’t set us back. This past spring, during the NFL lockout, Manning sought to build rapport with his young, unproven wide receivers. So he convened workout sessions at a Hoboken, N.J., high school. The other New York quarterback, Mark Sanchez of the Jets, created a similar minicamp. But his teammates stayed at oceanside villas in Southern California. Manning’s gathering was less glamorous but more effective; he has particularly connected with Victor Cruz, a Manning camper who appeared in three games last season as a rookie. This year, Cruz set a team record with 1,536 receiving yards and shredded the 49ers’ defense for 10 catches and 142 yards. “At this point, he can read us by our body language,” says fellow receiver Hakeem Nicks, who worked with Manning and Cutcliffe for three days this summer at Duke University, where Cutcliffe now coaches. “I’m very, very thankful he’s my quarterback, man.” Against the Patriots, Manning will need to be in rhythm with his wideouts. The holdovers from the 2007 New England team, which blew a chance at sports immortality by losing to the Giants, will be hungry for revenge. “They might deny it,” says NBC commentator Rodney Harrison, who was a safety on that team. “But it’s a factor. It matters.” The Pats also, don’t forget, have a pretty fine quarterback of their own in Tom Brady. After New England beat the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC championship game, Brady told a national television audience he “sucked”–he threw two interceptions and no touchdowns. He will seek atonement in the Super Bowl. The Pats are also playing with a purpose: they have dedicated the season to the wife of owner Robert Kraft, Myra, who died of cancer this past summer. The Giants, however, have a winning vibe and a better defense. Much like they did during their 2008 Super Bowl run, they are playing their best football at the right time of the year. Eli’s campers could be the most dangerous deep threats in the NFL, and New England’s secondary scares no one. New York’s defensive line is causing all kinds of havoc for opponents. If Eli can raise that Super Bowl trophy, call it a win for the tight-lipped pros who just go about their business. A win would also give Eli one more title than Peyton. Remember him? 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