It’s time we reappraise Manning, and instead of studying his back-to-school snapshot of a face for a clue to his personality, perhaps we should study a freeze frame from late in the New York Giants’ rain-and-blood soaked NFC championship overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers on Jan. 22. Manning is struggling up from the turf to call a timeout. His jersey has been ripped from his shoulder pad, his chinstrap has been pushed up around his flattened nose, and he is covered in blasts of mud.

Apparently, Manning likes it that way. Since 2007, he is 7-1 in the postseason, with an NFL-record five wins on the road — many of them in brutal weather. The 49ers sacked him six times in the mud, and when he was asked if he got hit too much, he smiled and said, “That’s just part of the deal.” Obviously, we have badly misunderstood him as the easygoing member of his family. “Do you not see what he’s doing on the football field?” Giants running back Brandon Jacobs demanded.

Ever since Manning arrived in New York in 2004, he has been portrayed as a mild and hapless younger brother. Critics said he lacked some essential genetic fire compared to Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts, five years his elder. He was too compliant, too complacent. All of that was wrong. The blandness now looks canny, a stubborn refusal to get distracted from his sense of self and maturation schedule.

“I always heard ’em say Eli doesn’t care,” Archie said. “Eli cares. But Eli doesn’t worry. He just doesn’t worry.”

He doesn’t worry about legacy, or some record book duel with his brother or Tom Brady of the New England Patriots. Asked if would get any help from Peyton on Sunday in Indianapolis, Eli stared a reporter down and said tonelessly, “He was very helpful in getting me some tickets to the game.”

Here’s the interesting thing about Eli: He has never ducked and run from the Manning name. If anything, he has taken it on. Picture this: a 5-year-old Eli, constantly teased and towed by 12-year-old Cooper and 10-year-old Peyton across the playing fields of their New Orleans home town, where his father was the quarterback for the Saints. “We were going to a jillion games, and here’s the five-year-old getting dragged along to the park,” Archie said. In one week, Eli had to sit through 17 different games starring Cooper and Peyton, Archie remembered. He feared Eli would grow up to hate contests of any kind. He told his wife Olivia, “This child will never do sports. It’s going to turn him off.”