Even in his biggest moment as a pro, coming off a win that landed the Giants' young QB in the NFC Championship game, Eli Manning was lost in his brother's shadow.

"There will be a Manning playing on Championship Sunday, but his name is not Peyton," FOX Sports' Joe Buck said as the final seconds ticked off the clock in the Giants' shocking win in Dallas on Sunday.

No Joe, his name is Eli. Is it even possible to go more than sentence about talking about him without throwing his brother or his dad's name in there?

To this point of his career the youngest Manning has been good, but not great. Two more wins and he has a chance to be Super. Whether or not Manning and the Giants can advance past the Packers and beat the AFC to win the Super Bowl, you can not argue about the maturity Eli has shown this year. His play down the stretch has been nearly flawless.

Manning's 2007 season epitomized his entire NFL career - 23 TD's (24 each of the past two seasons), a career-high 20 INT's (has thrown 17 and 18 in two previous years as starter), and 3336 passing yards (averages 3447 PaYd per year in that span).  In the NFL it's all about what have you done for me lately though.  Over the past three weeks the former No. 1 overall pick has shown glimpses of what the Giants saw in him that made them love him so much that they mortgaged their future to get him.

LAST THREE GAMES
Week 17 - at New England - 22/32 for 251 PaYd, 4 TDs, 1 INT
Wild Card - at Tampa Bay - 20/27 for 185 PaYd, 2 TDs, 0 INT
Divisional Playoff - at Dallas - 12/18 for for 163 PaYd, 2 TD, 0 INT

Those numbers aren't blowing anybody away, but eight TD passes and only 1 INT wins games and that is all that matters in January. Nobody is arguing that Eli is better than Peyton, but it would be nice at least for rest of the playoffs that people talk about him without mentioning his brother in the same breath. No matter which brother is a better quarterback, Eli is the only one playing now.

As I was watching the Colts blow their divisional playoff game to the Chargers yesterday, it struck me just how lucky that team was to have won the Super Bowl last year.  Not that they won the Super Bowl by being lucky, but can you imagine how history would have viewed the Peyton Manning era had they not picked up a Lombardi Trophy?

Let's just say that they didn't get themselves a Super Bowl win.  Aren't they the Buffalo Bills of the 2000's?  People are going to think of the Colts teams of recent years as being better than the Bills of the late 80's-early 90's, but in reality there's not a ton of difference between the two, other than that trophy.

Over the past six years (we'll start there so as to exclude the 2001 "Playoffs?" season), the Colts are 73-23 in the regular season.  The Bills from 1988-1993 were 70-26.  The Colts are 7-5 in the playoffs; the Bills 10-6.  The Colts went to two AFC Championship games in a difficult conference, while the Bills went to five, albeit in a time where the AFC wasn't nearly as strong as the NFC.

The Bills had a dynamic squad, but had the unfortunate luck of making the Super Bowl in 1991 against the Redskins, who might be the most underrated team in league history, and then against the Cowboys in their early Big Three stages (I'm sure the Bills would love to thank the Vikings for handing the Cowboys all those draft picks to build that powerhouse).  They were one of two franchises in NFL history to make four consecutive Super Bowls - granted they were also the only one to lose four straight as well.  But they were clearly the best AFC squad over that timespan. 

The Colts, on the other hand, had to deal with the Patriots twice during the years when they went on to win the Super Bowl.  But they also wasted home field advantage two of the past three years, losing to Pittsburgh two years ago (which was a team that, I think we can agree, would have been sitting at home had Carson Palmer not torn his ACL early in that first-round game) and to the Chargers yesterday (to Billy Freaking Volek!).  They were also lucky enough to get to play against Rex Grossman in the Super Bowl, a luxury the Bills never had.

Had Scott Norwood made his game ending field goal in Super Bowl XXV, this isn't even a debate, clearly the Bills are better.  If Peyton Manning doesn't lead that game winning drive against the Patriots, they're thought of as a bunch of choke artists and everyone wonders why Manning can't win the big one.  But this is the NFL, where you play to win the game, and probably the Colts are going to be remembered as a greater team than the Bills because of that trophy, no matter how many Super Bowls the Bills made.

Fair?  Unfair?  Am I crazy for even thinking about this?