Super Bowl XLVI is in Indianapolis this year, and a player with the last name of Manning quarterbacks one of the teams playing in it this season.

In some NFL circles there are those who believe that Peyton Manning should be considered a leading candidate to win MVP, even though he has not played a single snap this season. Although that assertion is blasphemous, especially considering how other quarterbacks have had career-best years, the silver lining between all of the talk before the Giants’ showdown with the Patriots is that even if Eli Manning wins his second ring, he is still inferior to his older brother.

As amazing as it might sound, there are sports critics out there who believe that if Eli wins the Super Bowl, he will have eclipsed Peyton not only in Super Bowl rings but also as a quarterback. ESPN columnists Bill Simmons and Rick Reilly have glossed over the subject, and ESPN analyst Merril Hoge went as far to say that if the G-Men win Sunday, Eli will have surpassed his brother as a quarterback.

Not much went well for the Indianapolis Colts this year as they won eight fewer games than any season Peyton Manning quarterbacked during the past nine years. With Peyton Manning, the Colts are a legitimate playoff contender every year; without him, they are the equivalent of a AAA baseball team competing in the big leagues.

During the latter half of the past decade, Peyton Manning has masked the problems of the Colts, who finished a league-worst 2-14 without him this season. From 2002-10, he has guided his team to nine straight 10+ win seasons, the only quarterback ever to accomplish such a feat.

The four-time NFL MVP is a once-in-a-generation athlete and his legacy will be remembered for how he fundamentally transformed the modern day quarterback position. His pre-snap reads and obnoxious audibles show that through tremendous preparation, Peyton Manning acts as an on-field offensive coordinator. Manning changed the way football is played the way Bob Gibson did with baseball when Major League Baseball lowered the pitching mound 5 inches because of Gibson’s dominance. When the sport adapts to the athlete, you know you are in the presence of someone who is transcendently great.

Even if Eli tops Tom Brady again this Sunday he will not be remembered for the video game-like statistics and how he consistently propelled his team to another level like Peyton. Even if New York wins the Super Bowl, 2011 will mark another year that Eli and his 9-7 Giants could not top Peyton when looking at the season as a whole.

The popular belief that a quarterback’s success is measured by championships is too simplistic in this circumstance. Football is a team sport where a dominant player can only cover for a weaker player’s inadequacies for so long, as Peyton has done for the past few years with the Colts.

Eli is beginning to close the gap between him and his older brother, but the statistics and the year-to-year consistency will be nearly impossible to match. Peyton has thrown for more than 4,000 yards for 11 seasons; Eli has only done so three times.

If Peyton Manning ever returns to the game of football he will make one last stand at a Super Bowl run wherever he ends up playing. His competitive nature will propel him toward finding a way to succeed.

Oh yeah, and Eli still has to beat the best quarterback of this generation Sunday for this even to be an argument.