Eli Manning finally thinks he’s worthy of following in his big brother’s footsteps — in comedy.

The Super Bowl champion quarterback will host “Saturday Night Live” this week. He turned down the gig in 2008 because Peyton’s appearance the year before was such a hit.

“One of the main reasons I did not do it was Peyton had done so well the previous year,” Eli said yesterday.

“So I didn’t want to have [to go] up against a great, a tough competition and the great job that he performed.

“It didn’t seem right at the time,” Eli said. “I’d just had some success, but I hadn’t really proven myself as much as I wanted to.’’