I've got a feeling about this game...

Just like a breeze in the wind, the football season has again drifted by all too quickly.
It seems just only yesterday that me and a couple of buddies were giving predictions in August about the upcoming season, in each case hoping the best for our teams and the worst for rival football squads.
Beginning in the heat of summer, coaches and players endure sweltering temperatures that cause most of us to flee inside for shelter under the air condition unit. There is not a wasted moment during these sessions, used to drill players of their roles within the team's general scheme.
It is at these times, when the lights are a bit dim and few are watching that the game's best look over hours worth of game film and repetition in an effort to give their best when the eyes of millions are focused on their every movement.
For the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints, players on both teams have waited an entire season and for that matter their lives for the opportunity to proclaim with teammates they are undoubtedly the best in their profession. Both spending most of the season without a loss to their name, this Sunday should be a day many of us should remember.
However, the lead-up to one of our nation's unofficial holidays has been anything but eventful. Well, maybe a part such disappointment could be the fact my team is not involved in the festivities that has me a bit down for this year's game?
After a bit of soul searching, that was not the reason for my "Super Bowl blues." In year's past, including last year's epic game between Pittsburgh and Arizona, the allure of the game was something that kept me from doing much of anything.
Much of the week leading up to the game was spent checking out game Web sites, the opinions of experts, and sometimes even seeing what was going on in the host city just in case I needed a mental retreat and decided to make the drive to what for a few days is the world's biggest party.
There has been little of that this week, with my need for coverage of the game limited to the rare few times I'm in front of the television set. The thought of driving to Miami to partake in this year's festivities even proves to be draining, me still having bad memories of driving there a few years ago (...what a boring trip!).
However, the last time I had a feeling like this was in 1999, as the John Elway and the Denver Broncos prepared to face the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl XXXIII in of all ironies, the site of this year's game, Sun Life Stadium in Miami.
Making it back to football's grandest stage for the second year in a row, the Broncos were forced to earn their way to the Super Bowl, overcoming a second half deficit to defeat the Jets. Though winning his first title only 365 days earlier, Elway was looking to join the NFL's list of quarterbacks to lead their teams to multiple championship rings, an elite fraternity consisting of only seven at the time.
Opposing the Broncos on that day was Atlanta, which after years of inferiority were finally able to test its mettle against the NFL's best. Unexpected to make a Super Bowl run prior to the season, the Falcons rode the wings of a 13-3 record to the playoffs, defeating longtime rival San Francisco in the divisional round and getting more than a little bit of help to win the NFC title against Minnesota, which broke a number of records en route to a 15-1 mark, also a league best.
Atlanta, a city that never sleeps and sure knows how to party, was gearing up for a festival that would end days after the victory parade.
Nothing intrigued me about the Super Bowl matchup that year, for some reason feeling the game would not live up to all the hype being bestowed upon it. Sure enough, I was right.
Elway led the Broncos to a 34-19 dismantling of the Falcons, during which the future hall of famer would pass for 336 yards and a touchdown. He would run in another, capping off a magnificent career.
It may not be 1999, but history finds ways to repeat itself. If I'm correct, we're in for one boring Super Sunday.
Similar to Elway, momentum has been building that Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning belongs in the conversation as one of the best to ever play the game. Almost sure to hold every NFL passing record by the time his days on the gridiron are through, the only thing left for him to do is accomplish the feat of winning multiple Super Bowl titles.
Winning his first ring three years earlier in the same stadium as this year's event, Manning only needs a win to help cement his legacy as one of the game's elite, finding himself in a situation similar to Elway 11 years earlier.
In Manning's way stands the New Orleans Saints, who march into Miami for the chance at its first championship. Like their division rival Atlanta, the Saints struggled for years, one of the NFL's worst teams for a number of years.
Just a few years after Hurricane Katrina laid waste to New Orleans, the football team has been a much needed breath of fresh air for the city. Enjoying a 13-3 season that saw the Saints earn the NFC's top seed, the squad easily ran through Arizona before getting a lot of help from the Minnesota Vikings in the conference championship game to earn a shot at the Vince Lombardi Trophy on Sunday.
Should New Orleans come out of Miami victorious, the city's French Quarter will likely have a party the equivalent of 10 Mardi Gras'.
But if the wheels of time remain in sync, those watching the game on riverboats floating along the Mississippi River will leave a bit disappointed. Hopefully, my belief of how this game will end turns out wrong; after all, people didn't spend hundreds worth in dollars preparing for a lackluster Super Bowl.
Just don't be mad if this game does not wind up as hoped; after all you were warned.
By the way, my prediction is Colts, 31-20.