Roethlisberger, Manning collide

The Steelers-Giants game will match Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Eli or Ben? Ben or Eli?

Four and a half years since the NFL draft initially didn’t please either Eli Manning or Ben Roethlisberger — a day filled with drama, hurt feelings, veiled warnings, a hurried-up trade and damaged egos — things couldn’t have worked out much better for both. Or for their two division-leading teams, each of whom has since won a Super Bowl.

When Manning’s New York Giants (5-1) play Roethlisberger’s Pittsburgh Steelers (5-1) on Sunday at Heinz Field, it will be the first matchup between Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks from the same draft class since Joe Montana’s 49ers beat fellow Class of ’79 alum Phil Simms’ Giants 7-3 on Dec. 3, 1990.

Even if, according to Manning, the only thing he and Roethlisberger will have in common is that each plays on the same field on the same day.

“Ben and I are not competing against each other,” Manning said.

In the public’s eye they will be doing exactly that, and they have been since they were drafted 10 picks apart. Their play has been dissected, scrutinized and compared in computer-generated detail ever since, and probably will be until, as Roethlisberger said, one or the other no longer plays.

“There’s always that little thing inside of you that wants to be the best, so I’ve got to get another Super Bowl before he does,” Roethlisberger said.

There have been only three sets of QBs from the same draft class to win Super Bowls — Jim Plunkett and Joe Theismann (1971) formed the other — but none won rings as quickly as the two current quarterbacks. Roethlisberger got his in his second season, Manning in his fourth.

How they got there involves a complicated scenario that triggers debate to this day.

Manning, as expected, went No. 1 in that 2004 draft to San Diego. He made it clear through father Archie Manning, himself a former NFL star, he didn’t want to play there. That allowed the Giants, choosing No. 4, to take QB Philip Rivers and package him in a trade with the Chargers.

That disappointed Roethlisberger, who felt Manning’s selection created an opening for the Giants to take him. When New York went with Rivers instead, Roethlisberger’s former coach at Miami of Ohio, the late Terry Hoeppner, angrily tossed his cell phone, knocking over a water bottle in full view of TV cameras.

The Giants were prepared to draft Roethlisberger if they couldn’t work out the Manning trade. Of course, they did.

The Giants’ move allowed Roethlisberger to drop all the way to the Steelers at No. 11, a snub that angered him — at least until he arrived in Pittsburgh to find a ready-to-win team that could absorb a brand-new quarterback’s mistakes and still be successful.

Roethlisberger won like no brand-new quarterback before him, going 13-0 during the 2004 regular season. A season later he won the Super Bowl, leading an eight-game winning streak that included four away from Pittsburgh wins during the playoffs.

Manning’s start wasn’t nearly as good — New York was 6-10 in 2004, with Manning going 1-6 — and the Giants were repeatedly second-guessed for not taking Roethlisberger. That debate continued until Manning led them to an on-the-road playoff journey last season that was similar to the ’05 Steelers’ title run, one that ended with an improbable Super Bowl win over the previously unbeaten Patriots.

Only then did Manning stop hearing the Giants should have taken Roethlisberger.