Tonight, focus is on field for NFL

INDIANAPOLIS -- The last time the Indianapolis Colts played a meaningful game, they were drenched by a South Florida downpour.

The last time the New Orleans Saints played one that counted, they were frozen by a bitter-cold Chicago squall.

And tonight, with the eyes of the NFL watching and the climate-controlled RCA Dome tuned to a shirt-sleeve 70 degrees, a new storm is brewing -- a high-pressure system that will establish a pecking order atop the league.

If you hear a relieved sigh, it’s the people at NFL headquarters. Because tonight isn’t about Michael Vick or Pacman Jones, training-camp holdouts or human growth hormone. At last, it’s about football.

This game, which will be televised by NBC, is a dream matchup for Madison Avenue types. It features the league’s two most marketed players: Colts quarterback Peyton Manning and Saints running back Reggie Bush.

The stars have already combined in a funny commercial promoting the game, a spot in which they one-up each other with room-service pranks. A two-story banner showing the faces of Manning and Bush blankets the side of a building in downtown Indianapolis.

At Monument Circle, workers have erected a sound stage for a free concert featuring Faith Hill, Kelly Clarkson and Hinder. Inside the dome, John Mellencamp will give a pregame performance.

“Nothing approaches the magnitude of a Super Bowl, but we have created a bookend to our season,” said Brian McCarthy, an NFL spokesman. “We’re generating more excitement than ever for the start of a season. We approach the marketing as if it were the opening of a blockbuster movie that everyone in America has been anticipating for months.”

Just before kickoff, while the Saints hang out in their locker room, the Colts will gather on the field for the unfurling of their Super Bowl XLI banner.

“For our organization and for our city, it will be special,” Indianapolis Coach Tony Dungy said. “I just wish we didn’t have a game that day. It’s one of the things you think about accomplishing, and to see that thing rolled down, it’s going to be awesome.”

The NFL sees this as part game, part gala, and both offenses are certainly capable of special effects. On one side is Manning, the league’s most marketed player, a foot-stomping, arm-waving traffic cop with an uncanny ability to thread passes to glue-fingered receivers Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne.

On the other is New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees, who last season bounced back from a serious shoulder injury to do something remarkable: Turn the Saints into winners. The franchise that went 3-13 in 2005 -- a team displaced by the ravages of Hurricane Katrina -- made it to the NFC championship game last season, where it lost to the Chicago Bears.

The Saints had the No. 1 offense in the league, rolling up an average of 391.5 yards. Dungy compares Bush to Barry Sanders.

“Obviously, people think that we can hang with these guys, and even if they didn’t it wouldn’t matter to us,” Brees said. “As a team, we’re very confident. We know what we can do. We’re not satisfied with where we finished the season last year and we’ve been looking forward to this opportunity for a long time.”

That makes Colts-Saints a natural for the NFL, which three years ago began the tradition of a nationally televised Thursday night opener hosted by the defending Super Bowl champion.

“When the schedule came out, you can look at it and narrow it down to a couple of games,” Manning said. “I figured it would possibly be us and New England or us and the Saints. . . . It’s a tough schedule, and it doesn’t get any tougher than starting against the Saints.”

If the Saints were to win tonight, they would be the first visiting team to do so in the current format. New England beat the Colts in 2004 and Oakland in 2005, and Pittsburgh beat Miami last season.

The Colts, meanwhile, are 7-2 in season openers with Manning at quarterback -- the last seven of which were played on the road -- and are 14-2 in September in Dungy’s five seasons.

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sam.farmer@latimes.com

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Who: New Orleans at Indianapolis

TV: Channel 4, 5:30 p.m.

What you need to know: Saints quarterback Drew Brees, who played his college ball at Purdue in Indiana and Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, a New Orleans native, were first and second in the league in passing yards last season, leading analysts to tab this a potential Super Bowl preview. The Colts will raise their Super Bowl championship banner before the game.

Peter Yoon’s pick: New Orleans. Saints running backs Reggie Bush and Deuce McAllister present a challenge for a Colts defense that struggled against the run last year.