Eli Manning Overpaid?

I thought this was a great article by Allen Barra wondering why the Giants paid Eli Manning so much money.

Eli no longer has Plaxico Burress, leaving an unproven crew of receivers - Steve Smith, Mario Manningham, rookie Hakeem Nicks, Kevin Boss, and Domenik Hixon. Keeping this in mind, I thought he was having his best year.

Regardless, he still is nowhere close to guys like Brees, Brady and his brother Peyton and I can't understand why the Giants would pay-up like this. What happens when Brady and Peyton Manning become free agents and rightfully demand more money than Eli?

Perhaps that was the Giants motivation all along - to take the bullet and force the Patriots and Colts to overpay for their star QB's so they couldn't fill out their rosters w/ as much depth as they've had in years past. From a Public Relations standpoint alone, neither of those teams could afford to allow their star signal-callers to depart via free agency, so they'll have to pay up. Assuming some form of salary cap is maintained, this would reduce the chance of one of those teams making a splash in free agency at other positions.