This Brady-Manning matchup will be unlike any other

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Tom Brady or Peyton Manning is going to the Super Bowl.

Between them, the quarterbacks for the New England Patriots and Denver Broncos have won five total championships -- four for Brady and one for Manning, in his days with the Indianapolis Colts -- and one of them has started for the AFC champs in nine of the last 14 Super Bowls, including each of the last two and three of the last four.

Inarguably the most iconic signal callers of their generation, Manning and Brady have faced off 16 times overall since they entered the league in 1998 and 2000, respectively, and the future Hall of Famers have met head-to-head in the playoffs four times, most recently in the 2013 AFC Championship Game, which Manning and the Broncos won.

With that in mind, next Sunday's AFC title tilt between the two in Denver will inevitably be met with a few groans from fans tired of the status quo and nauseous at the thought of how many times they'll hear the words "Brady" and "Manning" on their TVs this week. But the 17th iteration of Brady-Manning will be different, if only because it might also be the last.

At nearly 40 years old, Manning is almost literally on his last leg as an NFL player, having missed six games this season -- including one against the Patriots -- as a result of both a foot injury and generally deteriorating skills that made Brock Osweiler a better option under center down the regular season's home stretch.

Manning managed to avoid turning the ball over in Sunday's 23-16 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, just as he did in relief of Osweiler late in Week 17 against the San Diego Chargers, but on the season he has just nine touchdown passes to 17 interceptions, leaving one to wonder how Denver ever started 7-0 or locked up the conference's No. 1 seed to begin with.

Yet here they are, bafflingly on the doorstep of the biggest game in sports, and it'll be fascinating, if nothing else, to see if Manning, in what could potentially be his last game as a player, will have enough gas left in the tank to uncork the type of throwback performance the Broncos will need to get past New England.

At 38, Brady is no youngster himself, but the questions surrounding him and his team heading into Sunday have less to do with how much longer he'll be around to confound the rest of the AFC and more to do with an image that is still, in many ways, under repair.

For years, Brady has been the type of guy fans tend to hate unless he's on their team, but in the wake of the Deflategate scandal, wherein Brady allegedly had game balls deflated below the NFL's acceptable minimum level of air pressure, he's been villainized even further, perceived as more nefarious than he has for the better part of two decades, which is really saying something.

It was a year ago Monday that Deflategate first took center stage, during a 45-7 rout of the Colts in the conference championship game, but even 12 months later, many fans are still hesitant to forgive and forget. Part of that likely has to do with New England's continued success, which few anticipated, particularly after Brady was suspended for the first four games of the season. (The ban was ultimately overturned by a judge.)

But now that Brady has proved, once again, that he can singlehandedly keep the Patriots a contender for as long as he's in the league, it makes both him and his team more inherently detestable to the rest of the league's fans -- and when your own team is no longer in the mix, the next best option is always to root against someone you don't like.

Fortunately for everyone outside of the Patriots' home market, Denver has a defense that could actually prove capable of ending the defending champs' reign, even if Manning's ebbing physical attributes are doing the Broncos more harm than good at this stage in his career. (However, there's no doubt his mental grasp of the game is still as strong as ever.)

The league leaders in total defense, Denver allowed 283.1 yards and 18.5 points per game this year. The Broncos also gave up a league-low 199.6 passing yards per game and generated 27 takeaways this season, though their turnover margin took a massive hit thanks to Manning's propensity for throwing it at the other team's players.

In its overtime win over then-undefeated New England in Week 12, Denver's pass defense was hardly stalwart, as Brady threw for 280 yards and three touchdowns with no picks. But it also forced New England to punt on four of its final five possessions, including three crucial three-and-outs that kept the Broncos in the game. And there's no doubt they'll be looking for a more balanced performance on Sunday with the stakes as high as they've been all season.

All of that is to say that Brady-Manning Bowl XVII will be one worth watching, even for fans who may hate the teams and star quarterbacks in it. Overall, Brady holds an 11-5 edge in the series, but they've split the last 10 down the middle and neither quarterback has won on the road since 2007. That would seem to bode well for Manning and the Broncos, but if Sunday really is the final time the two most recognizable quarterbacks in football meet, the football gods will likely see to it that it's a classic regardless of who ends up winning the game.

You can follow Sam Gardner on Twitter or email him at samgardnerfox@gmail.com.