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A fabulously compelling Super Bowl matchup is set for two weeks from Sunday in the Arctic swamplands of New Jersey when the Denver Broncos will be facing the Seattle Seahawks in what will certainly be the coldest kickoff temperature in XLVIII years.

And let’s face it, no matter which teams won on Conference Championship Sunday, this QB matchup was destined to be special.

The AFC will be represented by an old-schooler, a future hall-of-fame quarterback under centre, Peyton Manning: cerebral, precise, preferring the pocket to escapability, a surgeon. The NFC’s shield will be carried by a new-wave idol, Russell Wilson: exciting, mobile, undersized, a leader able to seemingly make something out of nothing, a potential role model for pivots in future college drafts.

He’s a frat party favourite sparked by a frenzied fan base. Organized chaos at its best.

It was fitting that the marquee for the two conference title games — meant to find the best representatives in football — included Denver, New England, Seattle and San Francisco. All four teams were among the five that won 12 or more regular-season games.

Peyton Manning vs. Tom Brady: “Legacy” is becoming an overused word in pro sports. But no matter what numbers Manning will have compiled by the time he’s done, this game was going to help determine his place in history.

If he had lost on Sunday and dropped to 4-11 in head-to-head matchups, he would be owned by Brady’s legacy down the road. It was clearly a bigger game for Manning.

With his father Archie and younger brother Eli watching from a private box, Manning dominated from the start. In the first half and coming out of the break in the Broncos’ first possession, Peyton organized a pair of touchdown drives of more than seven minutes each.

Nobody could handle his No. 1 wide receiver Demaryius Thomas, who caught seven passes for 134 yards. Manning threw for 400 yards, with two touchdowns and no turnovers, owning the football for 35:44.

On the other hand, it’s not fair to call this one a legacy game for Brady. This was a Pats team that had none of the weapons fans have come to associate with recent dominance. In fact, this may have been Bill Belichick’s finest coaching job. Their two-pack of tight-ends, Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez, were not in uniform and the receiving corps showed why they’re mostly no-names. The Broncos keyed on LeGarrette Blount and the Pats’ ground game, and simply challenged the receivers to beat them.

The stat that seems most telling is that the loss dropped Brady’s playoff record in the eight years since his last Super Bowl win to 8-8, while the win upped Manning’s mark over the same period to 9-7, with one Super Bowl ring along the way.

Colin Kaepernick vs. Russell Wilson: Let’s see. What’s the easiest way to describe the matchup difference between the duo of Brady and Manning and the tandem of Kaepernick and Wilson? Try this for starters. The two AFC finalist QBs combined in 2013 for minus-13 yards rushing, while the younger pair in the NFC game combined for 1,064 yards on the ground.

But noting their similarities in evading defenders doesn’t do justice to the difference between the two.

Whereas the 26-year-old Kaepernick reminds one of Randall Cunningham, with his long stride and ability to pull the ball down and take off from the pocket at the first sign of danger, his 25-year-old Seahawks counterpart is more in the mould of ’60s and ’70s great Fran Tarkenton, scrambling in the backfield until someone works himself open downfield. The QB run is a third option.

The divisional rivals from the NFC West split their two regular-season games, but down the stretch it seemed as though Niners coach Jim Harbaugh had decided to drop all pretenses of converting Kaepernick into a traditional pocket passer, and has let loose his inner greyhound.

Both men are young and athletic, and the difference on Sunday was likely to be who made more ill-advised decisions. It turned out to be Wilson, but his team did enough that two weeks from now, he’ll have another chance to prove himself.

Super Bowl: Broncos vs. Seahawks. The last time the big game featured a matchup of teams from the NFC and AFC West was 15 years ago, with John Elway’s Broncos beating the Dirty Bird Falcons. Prior to that, the Niners crushed the Chargers 49-26 in ’95 and the Broncos 55-10 in ’90.

The classic differences in QB style on display this Sunday set up what’s sure to be a riveting Super Bowl, with the Seahawks’ bone-jarring defence against the precision, career brilliance and superior game management of Manning.

But for Peyton, he’s already a winner. Sunday’s victory against Brady and the Patriots salvaged his future legacy. Brady is not now and will never be his Daddy.

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