Terrell Owens is apologizing on the big screen.
It is a few days after his hissy fit and NFL Total Access is broadcasting the fallout. Owens' face fills the television in the Giants players' lounge, a spacious room decorated with leather couches and a handful of computers perched on a long desk. Beside the computer bank is a large cardboard sign declaring, "It's not about rights; privileges. It's about obligations; responsibilities. You can count on me!" A few players pop in to surf the Net, or relax on the couches, eating bags of Cheetos and shaking their heads at TO and his irremissible stupidity.
In time, Eli Manning ambles in and takes a seat. He looks at the television for a minute, then dispassionately turns away without comment. He is not terribly interested in another player's bad behavior. Nor does he care what the talking heads speculate for Owens' future. The whole spectacle of rampant ego and mouths gone wild is so far removed from his experience with football that he observes it as if he's watching the news in a foreign country. He sort of understands; he just doesn't speak the language. "I think the way you keep your cool is important," Eli says, slowly reclining into the sofa. His jeans pull up to reveal bare ankles, the rest of his feet buried in a pair of B ù rn moccasins. "I never get too hyped up or too down or too worried."
He pauses, tugs at his bulky, green sweater and offers a sleepy grin.
"I'm not Peyton."
WHEN YOU are a boy, and your father is a legendary quarterback and your mother is a former homecoming queen and you grow up in the South amid an entire population whose sole reason for drawing air is to make it to the next football season, certain things are expected of you. You are expected to play ball. You are expected to enjoy playing ball. You are expected to enjoy playing ball so long as God grants you the ability to play ball, and once that ability ceases, you are to spend the rest of eternity talking about the years when you did play ball. Such are the rules of manhood below the Mason-Dixon Line, rules not set in any particular home but by the far more powerful forces known as geography and culture.
In New Orleans, in the Manning house, all three boys played ball and all three boys excelled. Their father, Archie, Ole Miss hero, ex-Saints quarterback and de facto model of all that was right in the game, did what he could to temper their aspirations, never daring to inflate their hopes beyond that of a possible college scholarship. "I've seen parents push their children," he explains. "It backfires. I just wanted them to be good boys."
Archie played catch in the front yard, which, eldest son Cooper notes, "was handy." But there were no drills, no strategies, no plots for future NFL dominance. "I honestly don't think he ever imagined any of us would have a pro career," says Cooper, an investment analyst whose own nascent football career was cut short by a spinal injury. "He'd come watch us play. He'd sit at the top of the stadium. But I don't think he ever made a single comment, good or bad."
Archie talked football only when asked, telling his sons not about the renown but about the work required, adding, "I'm not going to be the one waking you up at 6 a.m. to run."
Clearly, Peyton was listening. Born two years after Cooper, Peyton did the hard labor, then did more hard labor just in case, then added a side of hard labor, with a dollop of hard labor on top. Consumed by football since first grade, Peyton never tired of training. "Sometimes I wanted him to loosen up a little," says Archie. "He was so organized. He prioritized his life. And fun was about fourth on the list."
And sometimes, it can still look that way when he plays. Even as he's become a record breaker, an earth rattler, Perfect Peyton, a man speculated about in feverish tones, a quarterback who some argue may become the best there ever was. "Peyton is tireless," Cooper says affectionately. "He's demanding. He has to be in control. He's very seldom satisfied. Driven. A perfectionist. Peyton," Cooper adds, sighing, "is who you want running the show."
Eli is different.
Laid-back. A parrothead. A dude. "I'm the kind of guy who can go through a whole night and wonder if I was even there," he explains.
"He comes from a great pedigree," says Tiki Barber. "The Kennedys of the NFL. But he's so unassuming. Even in the New York clubs, he dresses like he's going to a bake sale."
This, contends the 24-year-old Eli, is an asset. "When something doesn't go Peyton's way, after an incompletion or something, he's showing it. He's yelling at somebody. Whereas I'm just, hey, let's go to the next play." He shrugs. "I don't feel as much emotion. Not after a touchdown or a fumble. I don't know why that is. It's just the way I have always been."
Eli remembers family dinners as a boy in New Orleans, sitting around the table, listening to the swirl of voices. Cooper was the card, always joking. Peyton had a million questions, mostly about football. Eli never spoke. Instead, he sat and watched and took notes. He absorbed the big picture and wondered about his place in it. "I grew up extremely shy," he says. "I never said a lot in school unless I was called on. I never raised my hand. I was one of those people."
He is still one of those people. Where Peyton can be a tsunami of anxiety, Eli is a tide: easy in, easy out. A man who—make no mistake—cares deeply, but doesn't feel the need to broadcast it. He owns that he was born reserved, and remains reserved. "My dad always said, never change your personality," Eli explains. "He said, remember, who you are is what got you here."
If Eli has a game plan, it is one born out of his character. Stay calm. Prepare. Try hard. Let the chips fall where they may. He is far more leaf on the wind than boulder in the stream, more "let it be" than "make it so." "You can feel what you should do on the field," says Eli. "Watching film, you'll see yourself make a movement when there's a guy behind you, but you had no way of knowing that before. Where to move in the pocket, where's the throwing lane. You find it somehow. There's no answer. Something tells you to do it."
Not that he is completely Obi-Wan Kenobi. "I'm still ambitious. I just don't show it as much as people want me to," he says with genial resignation. "I don't talk about it. But I want to win as badly as he does."
The he being Peyton, also known as the most competitive man Eli has ever encountered and therefore the standard by which all others must inevitably be judged. This year, Eli has been winning. The Giants are 8—4 and in first place in the NFC East, a monster leap from Eli's 1—6 record as a starter last season. Fans are happy. Teammates are happy. Tom Coughlin is twitching less. "Eli progresses every game. He works hard and he learns. Not everything is perfect," says Coughlin brusquely. "But he has sound reasons for why he does what he does. He's humble."
And humility endears. Even to Coughlin. By all accounts, Eli leads by example. He works out early and stays late. He studies ferociously, examining every past play and front. "I've been on six teams, and he prepares harder than anybody I know," says backup quarterback Tim Hasselbeck. "Even a play the opposing team has used once. He skips no details. That's hard to do in a long season."
While Barber concedes Eli can be recessive, he doesn't see the drawback. Drama on the field may make good television, but it's a drag to play around. Hasselbeck agrees. "A lot gets made of the rah-rah guy, the Dan Marino-style screamer in everybody's face," he says. "People say Eli is so quiet, he's not taking charge. But those people don't see him at practice before everybody else, or staying later than everybody else. And really, you gain more respect by doing that than by pointing fingers and getting in people's faces." Like Peyton? "Well, kind of."
A FEW little-known facts about Eli Manning:
He calls his mother almost every day.
He grows out his stubble so he will look older.
He reads about brain physiology.
He laughs at the movies when nobody else does.
He suffers from road rage.
He insists on costumes for Halloween.
He has had the same girlfriend since college.
He has no idea why she's with him.
He enjoys a feel-good song.
Archie's no-pressure parenting leaves his sons all smiles.
"I'm not an angry guy," he says with a smile.
"Eli doesn't have many enemies," says Cooper. "He's tough to dislike."
"I've never been cocky," Eli says. "In high school, it wasn't like Varsity Blues, where the football players are the kings of the class. I was not a problem child. Of course," he says, smiling, "I wasn't perfect." Eli says he went through his "bad stage" senior year of high school and freshman year in college. "I wouldn't listen to anyone."
He drank too much. Partied too much. Broke curfew. Got his picture in the local papers for public intoxication during his freshman year at Ole Miss. Introduced middling shame to the family name. "I'm not one of these boys-will-be-boys fathers," Archie says. "He was remorseful. He took his medicine."
"The whole mess was embarrassing for me," Eli recalls. "I didn't like going to class. I didn't like being seen. I hated all of it." Looking back, Eli has some opinions about why he slid. "I was worried about playing college football."
More specifically, he was worried about his older brother: "Peyton had such success. I never admitted I was worried. Acting out was a way of dealing with that without dealing with it." He pauses, sighs. "I keep most stuff inside. There was fear. I never told anybody that. I never said anything about it. But there was some fear. Would I be able to do the things that Peyton did? He made it look easy. I didn't know if I would be able to do it."
In the spring of Eli's freshman year, then-Ole Miss coach David Cutcliffe, who had been Peyton's offensive coordinator at Tennessee, pulled Eli aside for a talk. "I asked him, Do you want to be great?' " Cutcliffe says. "I didn't want him to answer right away, I wanted him to think about it. Because if he did, he'd have to change his ways."
Eli realized he didn't know what he wanted. He'd never thought about it before. He'd swum with the current and hadn't drowned. And that had been plenty. But this was different. This was about what he expected from himself. "I loved football. I loved practice. I was doing it, but I was doing it because I felt like I should. I wasn't committed."
He mulled things over, imagined his future without football. He thought about his father and Cooper and Peyton. Especially Peyton. Because when you have a brother who outshines the sun, it's awfully hard to convince yourself to turn on a night-light. "He was dealing with Peyton past and present," says Cutcliffe. "I tried to make the point it wasn't about Peyton, it was about Eli."
"Eli is five years younger than Peyton," Archie says. "When he was a quarterback in high school, Peyton was already a quarterback in college. When Eli was in college, Peyton was already in the pros."
The shadow had always been there. And Eli realized the shadow wasn't leaving. And that's when he decided, so what? He went back to Cutcliffe a day later and asked for a second chance. "I wanted to be able to say that I went for it," Eli says. "I needed to make sure that I found out. I was on a bad path. After that I got focused. And I haven't looked back."
Any lingering uncertainty was quelled during the December 2000 Music City Bowl. Ole Miss was hemorrhaging to West Virginia, down 33 points heading into the fourth quarter. Eli, a redshirt freshman, had played only about 30 snaps that season. But Cutcliffe put him in to start the final 15 minutes, and Eli promptly threw three touchdowns, making the Rebels' 49-38 loss more respectable. "It was the first time I'd thrown a touchdown in college, and I think right there, the fans and coaches and players decided, this guy can play a little bit," says Eli. "And something in me realized it too."
"Eli doesn't get rattled," says Cutcliffe. "People respond to him. I think God knew what he was doing when he gave Eli his personality."
Maybe he'd never eclipse his brother. But maybe, just maybe, he would. Either way, he'd never have his answer unless he tried . "When I watch him play, I guess it's the closest thing to watching your son play," Peyton says, offering insight into their dynamic. "I see the linebacker that he doesn't see or I see the defensive end that's about to hit him. And you want to be out there and help."
"Most people want to do what their dad does," says Cooper. "Eli maybe looked up to Peyton more."
Hasselbeck, whose brother Matt is the Seahawks' Pro Bowl quarterback, knows about measuring yourself against a sibling and a league. "I'm in the same situation, with a brother who is older and … " He cuts himself off. "You never want to say you're trying to live up to what he's doing, but obviously there is that competitive fire. You'd like to surpass him."
Sibling rivalries are complicated affairs. And the Mannings are no exception. Because the truth is, whether he likes it or not, Eli needs Peyton. Not to prop him up—"Let's just say the words 'you're great' have never passed any of our lips," Eli says—but to bridle against. Eli defines himself by what he isn't. And what he isn't, at least stylistically, is Peyton. They may share a passion and a job and goals, but in the end, they are just like any brothers who love and exasperate each other in equal measure, boys talking smack and drawing lines in the sand.
"Eli and Peyton are so, so different," Archie says, chuckling. "Eli doesn't worry about much. He's truly the happiest child I've ever seen."
And Peyton? Archie thinks for a moment. "He's happy when he's getting things done."
"Peyton's teammates respect him. Eli's teammates adore him," Cooper says. "They're brothers. They play quarterback. But you may find that Donovan McNabb and Eli have more things in common than Eli and Peyton. They're different guys."
"In a year," Cooper continues, "my brothers probably spend 12 days together. They live in separate worlds. If they weren't related, would they be great friends? Probably not."
IN EARLY November, Eli stole away to watch Peyton play in New England. Peyton broke his 0—7 record at Foxboro and led the team to a definitive 40-21 win. Eli felt proud. When he came back, he told his teammates how cool it was to watch his brother lead a game.
While the possibility of an Eli-Peyton Super Bowl is still very real, the Giants and Colts will definitely play each other next season, in the Meadowlands.
Like most of Christendom, Eli is looking forward to the match. "Obviously, I am going to try to win. But it's not like I'm trying to sack Peyton. It will be a neat experience. But I don't think it'll be awkward afterward."
Yeah, maybe. But really, in the contest for most gifted sibling, no one wants to place second. No one wants to be Haylie Duff. Cooper tells a story about the season Peyton lost three games in a row. About how the brothers didn't communicate for a month. "I couldn't call him. I knew the mood. And he certainly wouldn't call me." A failing Peyton is not a Peyton with whom anyone wants to spend time. Loss devours him. "With Eli," Cooper says, "you wouldn't hesitate to call. You probably wouldn't even know he'd lost."
Eli has his own Peyton story. He was in high school and Peyton was home from college. The two brothers decided to play a game of basketball, to 10 by ones. The game was tight, finally stalling at 9-8 Eli, and the last point wasn't going down clean. Shoving happened. Unpleasantries were exchanged. Archie watched nervously from the house. Finally, Eli scored the last basket. For the first time in their shared history, he had beaten Peyton at something. "It wasn't a good day," Eli recalls. "It wasn't, let's shake hands and go get a Gatorade."
Peyton didn't speak to Eli. To anyone. Not one word. For days. He eventually talked to his younger brother again, but by then Archie had already taken down the net. "Peyton hates when I tell that story," says Eli with a smirk. "Not because he looks bad, but because of the loss. That's just Peyton. He's so competitive. I'm competitive, but you know." His voice fades. He rubs his hands over the legs of his jeans. "Peyton set the bar high," he says finally. "He's where you want to get. I want to play at his level."
He stops again, shifting almost imperceptibly in his seat.
"I'm not there yet," he says, softly. "But I'm working on it."
And if he never gets there?
"I'm not going to cry about it."
Eli pauses for a minute, then smiles a big, unapologetic grin.
"Not being as good as Peyton isn't the end of the world, you know."