Is Eli top QB in Giants history?

Eli Manning is the best quarterback in Giants history, and the fourth best quarterback left in the playoffs.

That says something about the history of the Giants on offense, but also about the work in progress that is Manning's legacy.

He is very good but not great, a star but not a superstar, a champion but not a Hall of Famer.

The cool part is this: At 31, he has plenty of time to change all that, and no time is better to get started than over the next several weeks, beginning Sunday in Green Bay.

If he can run the playoff table as he did four seasons ago, in the process potentially eliminating Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees and Tom Brady, he will rise to a new level, one that would put him in the running for the ultimate status:

Best quarterback in the Manning family.

This sort of discussion makes Eli cringe, despite that famous radio interview of last summer during which he took a few steps down that path.

When a hopeful columnist asked Wednesday whether this type of game can define a quarterback's career, Manning reacted as if he had been asked to weigh in on the South Carolina Republican primary.

"I don't know,'' he said. "That's not really a concern right now. I am concerned with Green Bay, understanding their defense, getting our offense ready to play and just try to go out there and play my best.''

Oh. Instead let us turn to a guy who specializes in historical perspective: former Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi, even if he is a tad biased as the guy who bet the near future of the franchise on Manning in 2004.

No dice. "You have to wait until his career is over,'' Accorsi said. "If I'm still around, call me.''

Still, he could not resist expressing his pride in the guy on whom he risked his own legacy. "You can't count him out,'' Accorsi said. "With the ball in his hands late in the game he's been lethal.''

That never was more evident than at the end of Super Bowl XLII, of course, but Accorsi has been impressed with how many times Manning has replicated that feat, because the real test of greatness unfolds across years.

Former teammate Michael Strahan, now a Fox analyst, said Manning has come a long way even since his greatest triumph.

"He's a totally different guy than he was back then,'' Strahan said. "Now I just see such confidence in himself right now, whereas before, you never quite knew what you were going to get.

"In the 2007 season, we were just kind of gritting our teeth and hoping that Eli believed in himself as much as we were starting to believe in him. And he hasn't disappointed since."

Let's stipulate for now that Eli is not as good as a healthy Peyton, and not as good as Rodgers, Brees or Brady. The more interesting discussion is his place among the best Giants quarterbacks, a list that includes Benny Friedman, Charlie Conerly, Y.A. Tittle, Fran Tarkenton, Phil Simms and Kerry Collins.

Manning has been better over a longer period than them all. No, really.

A far better judge than me, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Dave Anderson, said so without hesitation Wednesday. And he first saw the Giants play in the 1944 NFL Championship Game.

Another couple of victories this month would end any debate. But Manning is thinking only about the task at hand, and thinking about not over-thinking it.

"This is fun,'' he said when I asked him if the playoffs alter his famously laid-back approach to life. "It's not a situation where you say, 'It's playoff time, let's get all tensed up and serious.' It's a time to be yourself, make sure everybody knows it is big games and obviously important, but you have to go there with the attitude you're going to enjoy this opportunity.''