Peyton Manning

AP / CHARLES KRUPA

FOXBORO — It was as if you were watching the game from the comfort of your La-Z-Boy.

During a timeout in the New England Patriots’ game with the Indianapolis Colts at Gillette Stadium in November, Peyton Manning came on the screen, wearing a bad hairpiece and phony mustache, touting Sprint cell phones and the company’s NFL package in an exaggerated drawl.

The commercial played on TV across America every Sunday during this football season — but this time, it was on the JumboTron at Gillette. While the New England fans booed their nemesis, Manning and his offensive linemen had a chuckle in the huddle.

The crowd’s reaction probably would have been no different had Manning’s commercial for Gatorade been played. Or one of the several he’s done for MasterCard. Or Sony high-definition TVs. Or DirecTV. Or Reebok.

When Manning and the Colts take to their home field tonight to face the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game, with a trip to Super Bowl XLI on the line, it’s a sure bet that at least one of the aforementioned commercials will come on during the all-too-frequent breaks in play. But none of the ads will feature the Patriots’ superstar quarterback, Tom Brady.

Manning’s willingness to hawk everything from credit cards to sports drinks and Brady’s selectiveness in what he endorses — he has done Visa and Sirius satellite-radio commercials and a print ad for Movado watches — is just one of the many differences that separate these two men off the field.

In many ways, they are opposites: Manning, virtually born to be an NFL signal-caller as the middle son of beloved quarterback Archie Manning, has an aw-shucks Southern charm, no doubt stemming from his New Orleans roots. Were it not for his “laser-rocket arm,” as he calls it in the Sprint ad, and his ability to process myriad developments on the field and react to them at lightning speed, he wouldn’t seem much different from the average Joe.

Brady is Northern California cool, a stylish metrosexual who has had to work for respectability at every stop of his football life. Off the field, with some styling product in his hair, the dimple in his chin and typically wearing blazers, jeans and Nike ensembles, he still doesn’t look like a regular guy.

He looks like he stepped off a Calvin Klein billboard.

Manning is married to his college sweetheart; Brady is famously single, having recently broken up with actress Bridget Moynahan. Victoria’s Secret supermodel Gisele Bundchen was reportedly in attendance at last week’s game in San Diego as Brady’s guest.

Manning was the number-one pick in the 1998 draft, while Brady was taken 199th two years later.

Amazingly, though, they are friends. Before this season, they banded together to get a new league rule allowing visiting teams to supply 12 footballs of their own when they were on offense (previously, the home team supplied all game balls), meaning quarterbacks can now play with the ball they prefer, whether straight out of the box or scuffed up just so. Brady said they spoke last week, even as the two prepared to face off in the biggest game of the season for both. Manning, who could conceivably own every passing record in NFL history by the time he retires, is still looking for his first Super Bowl appearance, while Brady could be making his fourth trip to the big game in six years.

That, too, separates them.

It has become almost paradoxical that someone as talented as Manning has not yet converted that skill into the ultimate football success ... in college or the pros. In four years as the starter at the University of Tennessee, for instance, Manning never beat rival Florida. In his senior season, he turned in a lackluster performance in the Orange Bowl as the Volunteers lost to Nebraska.

By contrast, Brady started for only two years at Michigan, but the Wolverines compiled an overall record of 20 wins and 5 losses and won two bowl games — the Citrus Bowl in 1999 and the Orange Bowl in 2000.

In the pros, it’s been more of the same.

Manning has done amazing things since joining the Colts. He has started every game of his professional career, a streak that will hit 156 games today. In 2004, he threw a league-record 49 touchdown passes in 16 games, breaking the record held by former Miami Dolphins star Dan Marino.

But, like Marino — who appeared in only one Super Bowl, which he lost — Manning’s record-breaking performances have been tarnished by a lack of postseason success. He lost his first three playoff appearances. After winning his first two in 2003, he lost to Brady and the Patriots in the AFC title game. His record-breaking ’04 season ended in Foxboro as well, this time in the divisional round. Last year, it was a loss to the eventual champions, the Pittsburgh Steelers, in the divisional round, after a regular season in which Indianapolis flirted with perfection, winning its first 13 games.

Brady’s postseason performances, on the other hand, are the stuff of legend. He is now 12-1 in the playoffs, with 6 of those victories requiring fourth-quarter, game-winning drives. When the stakes are highest, he responds, whether with a last-minute, near-length-of-the-field drive to set up Adam Vinatieri’s game-winning field goal in Super Bowl XXVI, or last week, when — given a new life thanks to a fumble forced by Troy Brown after Brady had thrown an interception — he rallied his team from eight points down in the fourth quarter to victory.

Their paths cross again tonight — a night when Peyton Manning attempts to narrow the differences between himself and his friend.

smanza@projo.com