Mike Celizic

Games of the Century are cheap. Here in the toy department, it’s a bad week when we don’t have at least one.

I’m going to let you in on a trade secret: We sometimes exaggerate these things just a teensy bit, which explains why the half-life of your average Game of the Century is maybe a month.

It’s not really our fault, and we’re not trying to make more of things than they are. It’s just that truly big games are as rare as water holes in the Sahara. And they’re so refreshing, that we keep seeing them even when they’re not there, like so many mirages.

But once in a while – as in once a century – one comes along that you know deep in your bones is the real deal. Such a game is Sunday’s Colts-Patriots clash, a game so anticipated and so larded with luscious story lines, there’s no other descriptive for it. It’s so big that it would still qualify as the regular-season Game of the Century if it had been held in 1999.

It’s got everything you could ask for. New England and the Colts are the two best teams in the game, they have built a fierce rivalry over the past seven years, they feature the game’s two most glamorous players, who also happen to be the game’s best quarterbacks – maybe ever; the Pats have won three Super Bowls this century, but the Colts have won the most recent one.

New England is looking to extend a dynasty; Indianapolis to establish one.

It would be better if they hated each other and threw a little smack around.

That’s one of the only flaws in the match – both teams have a level of respect for each other that is admirable on the sportsmanship level but less than thrilling on the spectator level.

The other flaw is that this game isn’t happening at the end of the season, with both teams carrying 15-0 records instead of 7-0 records.

But, hey, those scenarios are for the scriptwriters. This is a real game that pretty much fell into our laps. We knew both teams would be good coming into the season, but we didn’t know they’d be this good.

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The lack of personal animosity is more than made up for by the team’s contrasting personalities.

On one side of the climate-controlled field, you’ve got the Win-one-for-Jesus Colts, where players get bonus points for their charity work and the work day begins with a prayer meeting. On the other side, you’ve got the unshaven heathens of New England, where charity work is appreciated but not a condition of employment, and a fan could be forgiven for surmising that the team prepares for the game by getting down on one knee in a circle, joining hands and sacrificing a goat.

Tony Dungy, the Colts coach, wears his piety on his sleeve. He’s a true gentleman, one who answers the most difficult questions with thoughtful consideration, a man who never walked out on a press conference, never sneered at a reporters’ question, never was caught cheating, much less accused of it. He would not run over his grandmother to score the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl; he wouldn’t even run over Bill Belichick’s mother.

When Bill Belichick leaves home for work, he puts on a scowl that he keeps in a jar by the door and replaces it with his sense of humor. On the job, he’s a true s.o.b. who views his daily sessions with the media as something to be endured, like a colonoscopy. He gives away nothing – no emotions, no deeply-held beliefs, no personal anecdotes. Hit with a $500,000 fine and the loss of draft choices for spying on the Jets in the season’s first game, he seems driven by a deep desire to stick it to the NFL by running up the score on every team he faces, not just beating them but humiliating them. He’d run over his own mother, not just to score the winning Super Bowl touchdown, but also to score the eighth touchdown of the day in an exhibition game.

And then there is the battle of the giga-star quarterbacks. Like they’re coaches, they’re both winners. Unlike Belichick, they’re both personable and comfortable in front of fans and media.