May The Best Manning Win

After last season, however, with the NFL's scheduling formula having ensured that their teams would meet in 2006, the flow of football information between them dried up. "Before, I would study him on film and ask him questions about what he saw and compare notes about other defenses," Eli says. "That's all stopped." Over the summer Peyton and Eli spent a weekend playing golf with their father outside New York City. At dinner one night in Manhattan, Archie asked about LaVar Arrington, the Giants' newly acquired linebacker. "He's a good guy," Eli answered, "and he's going to give us some big rushes. I think we'll use him.... " Eli stopped; Peyton had pulled out a Sharpie and was pretending to take notes on a napkin. All three men cracked up. "The next night we were at a friend's house in the Hamptons," Archie says, "and the NFL Network was showing a Chiefs-Giants game from last year. The guys in the Giants' secondary were miked, and on the sideline they were talking strategy and calling out specific numbers. All of a sudden the TV went off, and Eli was standing there with the remote, half-smiling."

If this sibling rivalry must play out in our living rooms, so be it--but no football game, even one as epic as Sunday's, is going to alter the Manning family fabric. Prickly P and Easy E may have different leadership styles, but neither approach is inherently superior, and only the oddsmakers will be guilty of favoritism.

Late last spring Archie and Peyton met in Las Vegas for a shared corporate speaking engagement, entertaining questions from the audience as part of the program. A woman took the microphone and became tongue-tied while addressing Archie. Finally she blurted out, "Who do you like best, Peyton or Eli?"

A hush fell over the room. "Actually," Archie replied, "Olivia and I like Cooper better than both of them, because he's got the grandchildren."

In a more serious moment Archie and Olivia speak glowingly of all three boys, of how they have worked hard to become successful and at the same time developed into compassionate men. They take pride in the way that Peyton has supported and advised Eli. Peyton's guidance has been subtle, which is not his nature. Whether trying to vault his team to an NFL championship or ascend a stranger's staircase--and, for the record, he never did make it to the second story of his old house--Peyton is not someone who'll go down without a fight.

Nor, for that matter, will Eli. Perhaps, in his own inconspicuous way, he'll even figure out a way to get to the top first.