INDIANAPOLIS -- Peyton Manning hoped one training camp interview session would end the questions about Sunday's Brothers Bowl.
As his New York brother might say: Forget about it.
With Gotham's most hyped brotherly battle since perhaps the DiMaggios, the Manning vs. Manning affair has become the opening weekend's marquis matchup -- much to the family's chagrin.
"They've both said it's a game between two teams, and it is," father Archie Manning said during Peyton's recent bowling tournament in Indianapolis. "The media is trying to make it out to be Tiger vs. Phil or something, but it's not like that."
Certainly the Manning clan would prefer to downplay the first-ever football meeting between Eli and Peyton, Archie's sons who were both taken No. 1 overall in their respective draft classes.
Peyton, the two-time MVP, tried to diffuse the situation the first week of training camp when he answered the questions he expected from the moment schedule-makers put the Giants-Colts game in prime time on Week 1. Afterward, Peyton said he wouldn't talk about it again.
Good luck. The blackout will undoubtedly end when Peyton holds his usual Wednesday news conferences this week.
While Peyton and Eli have attempted to focus on the bigger picture -- such as the importance an opening day win might have on their teams' playoff hopes -- others, including the league itself, have used the obvious storyline to their marketing advantage.
In the NFL's Kickoff Weekend packet, page 55 is headlined "Manning vs. Manning an NFL QB First."
So much for the Giants and Colts.
"Well, that's the era we live in," Archie said. "There will be a lot of hype, and I'm proud of the way the boys are handling it."
Relying on 14 years of NFL experience and nine more as an NFL father, Archie Manning has tried to keep things in perspective as the sibling rivalry looms. He's not saying whether the family has scheduled a sewing project to create those trendy half-Giants, half-Colts shirts, and, like his boys, insists Sunday night's matchup really is more than a family affair.
The duel has created some intriguing family planning, though.
