Manning center of attention -- too bad it's Archie

Please picture this for yourself. There is one main artery to the visitors' locker room in Lambeau Field. It's a narrow hallway, maybe eight feet wide, and it leads from the locker room to the showers, to the trainer's room, to the interview room, to the toilets. It leads everywhere. This hallway separates the outside world from the New York players.

And that's where Archie Manning stood. He stood there for what seemed like a half hour, his media gathering clogging the hallway. Team officials tried without success to roll equipment past the mass of people, finally asking reporters to scoot out of the way so the Giants could actually get out of the locker room and on to the airport.

Archie was oblivious, but the Giants were not. Several players rolled their eyes as they walked past the logjam. One defensive starter walked past and muttered, "At least you're not right in the way."

Receiver Plaxico Burress, wearing only a towel, quietly squeezed past on his way to the shower, but when he came out of the shower and the logjam was still there -- different reporters, but with Archie Manning still the same log -- Burress moaned, "You've got to be kidding me." The media ignored Burress. All he had done was catch 11 passes for 154 yards.

Archie has gotten a lot of media mileage out of his kids. If this comes off as armchair psychology, so be it, but I sense something unfulfilled in Archie. He was one of the most talented quarterbacks of his generation, but he was stuck for most of his career on the horrible New Orleans Saints and never played in the postseason. He's not in the NFL Hall of Fame, and it doesn't look like he ever will be. As good as he was, he had disappeared from the NFL conversation.

Since the arrival of Peyton, though, he has been back. Archie has hovered around Peyton's success for years, including last year in Miami when Peyton was winning his first Super Bowl and Archie was doing the press circuit. Quick question: Anyone know what Tom Brady's dad looks like?

By then Archie had already crossed over from proud papa to something else. He engineered Eli's draft day drama in 2004, when San Diego drafted Eli first overall -- after Archie had told the Chargers not to draft his son -- and San Diego then traded him to the Giants.

Now this. For four years Eli Manning has been browbeaten in New York, compared unfairly to his brother, called a draft bust. On Sunday, he rose above the noise and delivered an NFC championship. But still there was noise. Ugly noise.

The sound of Archie Manning holding court in the winning locker room.

No more, Archie. Please. Your son is about to play in his first Super Bowl. Try acting like all the other fathers:

Enjoy yourself. Without interjecting yourself.