During our on-going discussion of Superbowl betting (which so far has focused on the countless prop bets available at Bodog and Bookmaker) we’ve alluded to the fact that there’s something of an inverse relationship to the number of sports media types focused on covering the big game and the ‘real’ news that actually comes out during the two week break after the Conference Championships.  That’s why anything approximating an actual story gets coverage far greater than its significance actually requires.  An important storyline development such as Dwight Freeney’s injury gets the coverage of a major news story, and minor things like the Reggie Bush/Kim Kardashian relationship that would ordinarily be an afterthought get big story coverage.

One interesting component of this year’s Superbowl is the lack of ‘trash talking’ between the two teams.  This may have something to do with the overall professionalism of the players and coaches on the Saints and Colts, but has left something of a vacuum for the mainstream sports media as they attempt to fill the two weeks before the game with a sufficient amount of pseudo-news.  Instead, the two Superbowl teams have started an off-field media competition that I’ll call ‘dueling paydays’.

It began on Monday where Colts’ owner Jim Irsay spoke about Peyton Manning’s forthcoming contract extension.  Manning technically has three years left on his current deal, but due to meeting a set of playing time incentives the last two years of the contract are voided and he’ll be a free agent after the 2010 season.  Obviously, the decision to re-sign Manning is a no-brainer, but Irsay all but bragged about the size of the money dump truck he’d be backing up Peyton’s driveway:

“You know it’s going to get done. I think it’s clear, and we’ll start on it this summer. That’s been the way we do things [to hammer out an extension when a player is entering the final year of his contract]. And it’ll be the biggest [contract] in history; there’s not much doubt about that.”

Fair enough, and after the Giants signed Peyton’s little brother Eli to a $97.5 million contract extension the financial bar has been set pretty high.  And no one–least of all me–is questioning that if you’re going to break the bank to re-sign a player that Peyton Manning is one of the better investments in the game.  Still, in the era of tough negotiations between players and owners over money its kind of funny to hear a guy bragging about the financial hit he’s going to take.

In reality, it probably isn’t a bad motivational strategy.  It’s not like Peyton Manning wasn’t going to go out and give his best effort on Sunday, but making it abundantly clear that he’s going to get paid can’t hurt anything.  And just so Peyton wouldn’t think it was just about money, Irsay went out of his way to explain just how ‘special’ he is:

“It simply comes to one question, and that’s replaceability. Everything is based on the replaceability factor. You make decisions based on who you can afford to target and keep. … Other guys you really want to [re-sign] you might have trouble doing it, because of what it costs you, and how much attention they’re getting [from other teams in free agency]. We don’t have that luxury and we’ve had to work hard.”

Not to be outdone, the “story” broke today that the New Orleans Saints plan to give *their* quarterback Drew Brees a pay raise.  Though New Orleans was sort of caught off guard by Irsay’s public declaration of his intention and hasn’t been able to get any ownership or management types to give Brees a ‘promise ring’ on camera, they have leaked the story to the mainstream sports media via the time honored ‘unnamed sources’.

Brees actually has a gripe about his salary, at least as much of a gripe about salary as you can have when you’re pulling down $10 million a year.  Brees is only the 17th highest paid quarterback in the NFL so even though he’s banking eight figures he’s still paid less than a lot of very mediocre quarterbacks.  The Saints considered extending Brees’ contract last year but decided to wait and will now have to pay even more for their franchise QB.

Somehow, Tom Brady even gets his name in the article linked above as the Pats are preparing to give their QB a raise as well.