Twelve Days of Super Bowl-mas: And a Manning in a palm tree

Ordinarily, the Super Bowl serves up a finite number of programmed-in-advance plot lines. On the field, there's the matchup between stars from the same first-round draft class or the coach butting up against his previous organization. Off it, there's the player striving to win a ring in his hometown or the parent who worked two jobs to pay for biomechanical analysis of Junior's throwing motion. Standard stuff.

South Florida welcomes the wizards of the media. (AP)

This year? Our media vat runneth over. As far as subplots go, Super Bowls don't come much more interesting than the upcoming Indianapolis-New Orleans tilt. Between the natural disasters, the Mannings and the sad-sack franchise making good, it should prove the most storyline-riffic Super Bowl in recent memory.

Which doesn't mean, of course, that we media folk will raise our game for the occasion. Hell, as I typed that last sentence, three news organizations dispatched cub reporters to Kiln, Miss., to stake out Brett Favre's pharmacy. We've only got so many bullets in our rhetorical arsenal.

For the time-deprived or only casually interested, then, I've charted out the 12 stories you'll be reading over and over during the next 12 days. Just do something useful with the time I've saved you, OK?

1. The Saints are America's Team: Far be it from us -- the members of the free press, who "only root for the story" and are totally impervious to petty personal biases or loyalties we've nursed since age 5 -- to tell you who to support. But really: If you're not rooting for the Saints and the people of New Orleans, you're either a Hoosier or a heel.

The city (and, by extension, the franchise) experienced an unprecedented twin screwing by Mother Nature and the government from which it hasn't recovered. It needs a win. You know this. I know this.

The Colts and their fans know this. We will report this as if it is news and not opinion.

The closest we've come to fan unanimity in recent seasons was the Giants-Patriots game in 2008, with a great majority of the universe unified against the bullying, Spy Gate-ing Belichick/Brady/Moss juggernaut. But even that consensus was compromised by a small subset of fans who couldn't bring themselves to root for a New York team under any circumstance.

There should be few such holdouts this time around. Come, let us take to the airwaves and the Internet. Testify!

2a. Peyton Manning is the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL: Or maybe he isn't. It's too early to render rational verdicts ... unless he claims his second Super Bowl title, in which case he has staked a legitimate claim to the throne ... unless you look at the talent that has surrounded him, which is more than Marino or Tarkenton ever had ... but maybe you have to factor in the system, which he created from scratch and steered with the unflinching efficiency of a middle manager, in which case he's the man(ning)!!! In conclusion, it's not hard to burn 20 column inches and/or 35,000 pixels debating the not-yet-debatable.

2b. Peyton Manning participates in numerous televised commercial campaigns: Why, it's almost like corporations are offering him money because they think they can benefit from association with his wholesome image, winning track record and general decency. Is this legal?

3. Over the course of their 43 years, the Saints have lost a few more games than they have won: Up until Sunday, the Saints' history read like something out of Scripture -- the bad parts, where The Big Fella/Gal Upstairs reacts to perceived slights by unleashing doomsday-grade bedbugs. We'll rehash every dubious moment, more gleefully than the subject matter demands.

Meanwhile, every one of these profiles in loserdom is federally mandated to begin with the tale of a long-suffering Saints fan. For example: "Jeaux Hebert-Neville, 67, has been attending Saints games since 1973. He has endured two-win seasons, sad-armed quarterbacking and the indignity of trading an entire draft class for a sensitive stoner. The Saints have driven him to drink and to disgust. He does not know what the hell to do with himself this week. He might tip over a car or three. He might go talk to his old tailgating pal Herb under the shady elm tree at the cemetery." Etc.

4. The Colts not only have offensive players with surnames other than "Manning" or "Saturday," but also a full complement of defensive and special-teams personnel: Did you know that backup tight end Colin Cloherty graduated from Arizona State with a degree in cosmetic dentistry? That little-used safety Aaron "A-Frandango" Francisco enjoys spearfishing and Pad Thai? That coverage man T.J. Rushing was raised in a functional two-parent household, within an educated, open-minded community entirely devoid of gang activity?

Whether or not any of those statements is true is beside the point. Your enjoyment of the big game can only be enhanced by your familiarity with the participants therein, so we'll fill in the blanks with anecdote and whimsy.

5. Grammar is dead: Who dat? Who dey? Press-seeking ethnolinguists, this is your fortnight to shine. As a profession, they haven't been this excited since the "Why Can't Us?"

6. Archie Manning played for the Saints and Archie Manning's son plays for the Colts and Archie Manning calls New Orleans home and so Archie Manning has some serious thinking to do: We love nothing more than a split-loyalty story. Remember the time when Ma Barber, who birthed Tiki and Ronde, responded to the pressures of a Giants-Bucs game by developing multiple personality disorder? Yup.

While we can all understand Archie's love for his hometown, we're going to have a tougher time figuring out why he would side with the Saints -- the franchise that, by failing to arm him with receivers, running backs or an offensive line that could block a breeze, did plenty to shorten his career and life expectancy. Expect many rhapsodies pitting "the old warrior" in Archie against "the dad."

7. Somebody doesn't believe in and/or respect somebody else: Come Thursday, a player on the Colts offense will utter a phrase along the lines of "the Saints do great things on defense and they're fast, man, so we have to look at the film and hopefully find something that works." This will be interpreted by a member of the Saint defense as "CANT STOP US COLTS INDIANAPOLIS USA 46225 REPRESENT!!!" And thus shall a motivational ploy be born, and multiply re-tweeted.

8. Holy mother of God, Miami kicks the crap out of Jacksonville, Detroit and the Arizona foothills as a host city: The general public deeply empathizes with the plight of us writer-type people. They hear our harrowing tales about the inconveniences of travel on short notice and the textural inconsistency of press-box chicken fingers, and tears start to well in their eyes.

Hence there will be an outpouring of warm feelings when we start filing our dispatches from South Beach, where the grass is green (or, rather, the stucco is pink) and the girls are pretty. Prepare to be regaled with appreciative notices about accessible public transportation and potent Wi-Fi signals. Except on Media Day, when we'll get all pissy after the frumpy chick from The View asks Drew Brees to expound on the length and elasticity of his underpants.

Ready to read even more about Jeremy Shockey? It's a painful thought. (Getty Images)

9. The Colts could've gone 19-0, but they chose not to: Depending on the pundit, this makes them either wussbags or pragmatists. Wanna know which side the writer is on without reading the story? Look at the headshot. The younger the scribe, the more forcefully he'll come down on the side of practicality. How did this debate live to see 2010, much less late January?

10. Jeremy Shockey wants the ball: Look over there -- he's open! He's 5 yards clear of any opposing defender! He's jumping up and down and gesturing wildly with his ham-sized mitts! How can you not see him?! Oh, great. Now you've done it. His body language says he is not your friend any longer. Also, he just broke three toes.

11. The Saints are less a team than a metaphor: They represent rebirth and rejuvenation, the pulsating heart that bridges pre- and post-Katrina New Orleans. No, wait -- they're the shoulder-padded crux around which the region has rallied, a stark reminder of what we have and what we've lost. Cue the mournful Dixie quartet.

In these stories, we will do everything in our power to quash the thought that maybe, just maybe, the fans have rallied behind the Saints because they're good. No, when attendance and jersey sales spike, it isn't because fans are pleased with the on-field product. It's because they want to make a statement about the durability of the human spirit. Write that down.

12. There is apparently a big old world outside football, and sometimes it intrudes upon our little games: We were reminded of this in 2005 when Katrina hit and we're reminded of it again now, with Pierre Garcon excelling on the field as he awaits word on the fate of relatives incommunicado in Haiti. It sometimes feels like the end of the world when Percy Placekicker steers one of his offerings to the unhappy side of the upright, but really: At the risk of lapsing into the sort of easy cliché that this piece aims to deflate, none of this stuff matters much in the grand scheme of things.

Hence the keep-things-in-perspective story is the one we shouldn't mind reading over and over again -- though God help us, we're going to see some purple prose as writers mostly versed in the nuances of the zone blitz attempt to go all We-Are-The-World on our asses. Hope for the best; expect the worst.

Saints 31, Colts 27. Please. Don't take it personally, Indiana.