INDIANAPOLIS — Super Bowl XLVI pits one former Super Bowl MVP against another as Tom Brady and Eli Manning meet again on the biggest stage in sports. But the two will never take the field at the same time together.
A more interesting, and in fact head to head battle, will involve New England's offensive line and the hyped up defensive line from New York.
In some ways it's a rematch of the meeting between the two fronts from Super Bowl XLII. Some of the faces are different – only Matt Light and Logan Mankins remain on the Patriots line while Jason Pierre-Paul has replaced Michael Strahan as the star of the Giants front – but there is still plenty of carryover.
In the first meeting, New York got the better of the matchup. Though the sides have faced each other in both the preseason and the regular season since the day of that big upset in the desert, clearly some animosity remains between the fronts.
But Mankins downplayed any rivalry between the two fronts.
"We don't like any defensive lines, so they are on the list," Mankins said with his usual dry sense of humor. "I don't think there is any more for them than any other team."
Mankins knows that the Giants, like some other teams, don't like the way the Patriots play along the offensive line and how some of the individual players do their jobs up front.
"That's all right. We don't mind being called dirty or cheap or any of that stuff. It's a compliment to us," Mankins said.
