In the first Super Bowl without roman numerals attached to the title, it should be a good one, with two of the best quarterbacks in recent history squaring off against each other. One of the two’s a future hall-of-famer, and arguably the best signal caller in NFL history, in Denver’s Peyton Manning, who’ll most likely retire after the game (at age 39), and the other’s a future-MVP (who could very well win it after this year) in Carolina’s Cam Newton.

Carolina finished with one of the best regular seasons in NFL history this year, starting their season 14-0, and ending up as the NFC’s # 1 seed, at 15-1. They led the league in most All-Pros selected, with six, and Pro Bowlers selected, with 10. With their 15-1 regular-season record, they became just the sixth team in NFL history to accomplish the feat, since the league adopted a 16-game-schedule format in 1978, and just the seventh team to win at least 15 or more games in a season (in 2007, New England went undefeated).

Out of those seven teams, only two (the ’84 49ers and ’85 Bears) teams won the Super Bowl. Carolina’s head coach, Ron Rivera, was a backup linebacker on that ’85 Bears team. This is his fifth year coaching the team, and only his second winning season so far. On the flip side, Denver’s head coach, Gary Kubiak, is in his first year with Denver, after coaching Houston for eight seasons from 2006-13. This season was Kubiak’s reunion with Broncos’ GM/executive VP of Football Operations, and Hall of Famer, John Elway, after the former backed up the latter in Denver years ago (1983-91).

Peyton Manning certainly has experience, whether that’s a good or bad thing, in postseason games, as he ranks second all-time in quarterback postseason starts. Next Sunday’ll be his 27th career postseason start, which will keep him in second place, four games behind his rival Tom Brady, who he beat in the AFC Championship Game a week ago. Manning is 13-13 in those games, with one Super Bowl win, while Brady is 22-9 in 31 playoff starts, with four wins.

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