Two Mannings enter, one Manning leaves

What makes today outstanding? Two Mannings were playing football this afternoon, and the right one lost.

I'm near the bottom rung of the ladder when it comes to the line of succession for the Peyton Manning fan club, but this means I possibly get to indulge myself when it comes to another offseason of reports that Peyton is sulking, Peyton is being snippy to his wife and Peyton is drowning his sorrows with the teamsters at one of the 40 to 50 commercials he's filming for the Super Bowl.

My favorite of these stories was an AP report that he was acting like a child while on vacation with his wife months after the Colts were bounced in 2004. A co-worker cut the story out and put it up in my cube and I'm pretty sure I still have it in a box from when I packed up my desk in Minneapolis.

I've settled down a bit since Manning did me a solid and bounced the Bears from the Super Bowl last year, but I'm really disappointed that there won't be a Pats/Colts showdown next week. That game would have been better than the actual Super Bowl, as it has in the past - thanks for nothing, Indy.

Regardless, here on Upset Sunday, the Giants and Chargers both won on the road. I have no idea how this happened. I'll leave the obvious shots to the Monday Simmons column, but I can barely contain myself after watching the Cowboys bow out tonight.

It's not just because Brett Favre has a historically suspect record in Dallas, it's because I don't have to spend a week hearing and reading about how Favre has a historically suspect record in Dallas.

So, New York is headed to Green Bay next week to face the blatant rip off of Seattle's 12th Man, the G Force and, more importantly, nut-numbing temperatures usually reserved for theoretical physicists.

As we learned from th Seahawks this weekend, electric underpants are apparently not the answer. No we can get back to the business at hand and prepare for a week of criticism directed at Tony Romo and his Mexican vacations with Jessica Simpson and speculation about how badly the Chargers should get killed in Foxboro.

Maybe Romo can give Manning some vacation tips - I'm thinking double-dating in Acapulco?

Update: The poll on NFL.com right now? What will happen in the AFC Championship game? Pats by more/less than 10 points or Chargers by more/less than 10 points. It begins.

(Image from: NYPost.com)