Are We to Feel Bad for Peyton Manning Come Sunday?

At what point do we start feeling bad for Peyton Manning?

When does it become relevant that his career has simply taken the same crash course that Brett Favre's did? 

Not in the sense of switching teams like a party hopper, but more or less the media-driven attention and inhumanity of being scrutinized while glory fades away.

It seems devilish to blame Manning for what has occurred with his neck injury and the repercussions that culminate into his NFL future.  But doesn't it also feel demonic to sit back and point fingers at the Indianapolis Colts for pursuing alternate quarterback options during an important rebuilding period for the franchise?

It sure does.  More often than not.

This entire story has brought about one of the most important, yet difficult, decisions a football club will ever have to make.  How do you turn your back on the greatest player to ever wear your colors?  How do you sit back and entertain trade options for arguably the best play-caller of all time?  How do disappear when your quarterback, the guy who has given your city a championship, needs you the most?

Quite frankly, nobody knows.  It's impossible to gauge the situation from an outsider's perspective.  One person would like to stay in the city he knows and prove why a season-ending injury is in no way an indicator of brinkmanship.  Another wants to set the record straight and stress the importance for a healthy change.

It's professional war at its finest.

But isn't that what we've always been told?  That the NFL—and, more broadly, professional sports—is simply a business.  That you have to be ready for anything, whether that means being traded or taking a pay cut so your team can acquire the next best thing.

And while some of these instances fade away into the depths of the sport's history, others stay afloat in what can only be considered the limbo of the league.

This Manning story isn't even close to over.  The precedence for ownership versus player is bound to be reached.  That could either mean a mutual contract reconstruction between the Colts and Manning or the end of No. 18 in Indy.

But beyond the finger pointing, media backlashes and overall dysfunction that has capsized the relationship between quarterback and team, some things are simply meant to be.  Some things have a strange way of figuring themselves out.  Some things, more specifically in the NFL, happen for reason.

Because when it comes down to it, irony has a funny way of showing what's wrong and what's right.  And there's nothing more ironic than this story reaching the outskirts of Sunday's Super Bowl XLVI.

Eli Manning, Peyton's little brother, will be attempting to capture his second Super Bowl of his career.  The potential championship victory would push Eli past Peyton in the NFL record books, which is something people used to think was borderline impossible. 

Are we that far along in both these brothers' careers that one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time could be lapped by his younger sibling?  Is it that crazy to ponder the idea that maybe Eli is in fact the superior Manning?

To be completely honest, it isn't.

Longevity and championship production are the sole things that fuel greatness in sports.  It's what produces winners.  Guys that can outlast the test of time and help their team capture glory in the season's final game.  It's what separates the Joe Montana's from the Dan Marino's.  The Michael Jordan's from the LeBron James'.  It's the simple divider between two brothers fighting for supreme legacies.

What makes Eli's attempt for greatness that much more ironic is the fact that it's coming against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.  The very same undefeated Patriots that the New York Giants beat in Super Bowl XLII.  But somehow, that's not the most interesting thing about it.

The piercing reality is that Peyton's younger brother not only has a chance to surpass him, but he has the opportunity to knock off the team that had tormented his older counterpart for nearly his entire career.  And Eli has a chance to do it in Peyton's house, Lucas Oil Stadium, a stadium that has embraced his older brother for nearly three years until recent team hemorrhages have seemingly spit the two forever.

Super Bowl XLVI serves as an eerie gateway into understanding how to gauge the entire Peyton Manning circus.  These things don't just fall into place—Eli playing the Patriots again, the game being held in Indianapolis, Eli on the cusp of surpassing his older brother against the team that shut him down so often.

It may be bittersweet, but one brother is ending the career of another.  Eli will be the last Manning to step foot in Lucas Oil Stadium until Peyton goes on the road.