This should be one hell of a game and I’m expecting nothing less than a barnburner. Both teams possess explosive offenses and underrated defenses and I can’t remember two teams being more evenly matched coming into the Super Bowl. The oddity of this game though is that both teams have the exact similar strengths so it will come down to who does what they do better.

All that everyone seems to want to talk about is Peyton Manning and Drew Brees and their stable of weapons, but I think that this game will come down to who makes the most plays on defense. The Saints have a very opportunistic defense and forced 39 turnovers during the regular season. The Colts were third in the league in scoring defense before they stopped trying and dropped to eighth. Both can cause opposing quarterbacks headaches. The Saints show a myriad of looks and schemes and possess a ball-hawking safety in Darren Sharper while the Colts have two premier pass rushers in Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis. But with Freeney’s status up in the air (I think he’ll play), they’ll have to come up with new ways to get pressure on Brees to hurry up his already lightning-quick release. For the Saints, they’re going to have to dig deep into their bag of tricks because it’s virtually impossible to confuse the cerebral Manning.

So who will come out on top in this defensive chess match and game of elite quarterbacks? When two teams are almost identical and have the same philosophy for winning football games, you have to go with the team who is a little more precise in their execution and the team with intangibles on their side. New Orleans has the heart of a city and virtually the entire country behind them while the Colts have been in this very position, and very venue, just three years before and a quarterback who may go down as the best ever.

Give me Manning to crash the party on Bourbon Street and ruin the sappy uplifting story that is the Saints. It’ll be a shootout and could come down to who has the ball last. But Manning always seems to find himself in those situations and is at his best when the pressure is the most intense. His legacy will only get richer in Miami.

Prediction: Colts 34, Saints 31.

-- BRANDON KOPCEUCH.