Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, being pursued by Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney during last year’s AFC Championship Game in Indianapolis, will face off once again versus Peyton Manning and the Colts on Sunday.

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The Providence Journal / John Freidah

The Biggest Game in the History of the NFL (This Week) has a lot of intriguing storylines — the two best quarterbacks of this generation, two of the best defensive minds the league has seen, fantastic offenses on both sides.

But over the last few months and weeks, the New England Patriots have morphed into football’s version of the Evil Empire, with Bill Belichick as the expressionless Darth Vader.

And, of course, where there is evil, there must be good. And who better for that role than the Indianapolis Colts? They wear white, the color of purity, for crying out loud.

The football-viewing public feels as if they know Peyton Manning because he’s smiling at them from every other Sunday afternoon commercial — heck, even his kid brother and father are in on the act. Coach Tony Dungy is seen as a kind, God-fearing man, the type of values embraced by most Americans.

Like anything, however, it’s not so cut and dried.

Sure, it makes for a sexy subplot, the small-city Midwestern team against the big bullies from the East Coast, but is that really what this game is? Does there have to be a “bad guy?”

We’ll grant you that the Patriots’ recent past wouldn’t put them in line for an Eagle Scout badge. From the Spygate controversy to Rodney Harrison’s suspension for HGH use to the current (and unwarranted) flap over their running up the score, many of the headlines have been less than favorable.

But many of the positives don’t get the headlines. Last month, Jarvis Green’s charitable foundation held a fundraiser in Seekonk, with the money raised going to single mothers in his native Louisiana and the fiancÉe and young son Marquise Hill left behind when he died in May.

Though he has three children of his own, Green has basically adopted Ma’Shy Hill since Marquise’s passing, and has every intention of being a father figure in the little boy’s life, providing financial and emotional support.

No big story about that, though.

When it comes to Spygate, New England’s big problem was that it got caught. According to former NFL coach Jimmy Johnson, Colts offensive line coach Howard Mudd was the best in the business at stealing the opposing defense’s signs when he was in Kansas City earlier in his career.

You don’t think he still does that, do you?

Then there’s this whole running-up-the-score brouhaha. While most of the hue and cry over it is coming from the teams that have been summarily dismissed by the New England, there has been some from the media, just another way the Big Bad Patriots are trying to ruin football.

Belichick feels it is exactly the opposite. During his weekly Boston radio appearance on Monday, the coach said he feels it is disrespecting the game if he told his team not to play its best in the final quarter against Washington.

“Nobody’s trying to embarrass or run anything up on anybody, but not playing is, to me, more disrespectful than playing,” Belichick said. “I wouldn’t appreciate that if I was on the other side.”

Tom Brady is on pace to throw for 60 touchdowns, which would break the single-season record of 49, set by Manning in 2004. That year, the Colts won games by scores of 49-14, 41-10, 41-9, 51-24, and 49-24 against Denver in the playoffs. We didn’t hear a whole lot about them running up the score three years ago.

Ah, but Manning had to score all of those points, you see: “I remember that year with the Colts, and back then people were scoring so many points against the Colts” that they had to put up a lot of points, CBS analyst Phil Simms said yesterday. But against Tennessee on Dec. 5 of that season, the Titans scored all 24 of their points in the opening quarter and got into Indy territory just once the rest of the way. Indianapolis was leading, 41-24, after three quarters and had doubled up the Titans a little more than two minutes into the fourth.

The Colts still tacked on a field goal before the game was over. Just for good measure.

And if we get into Colts president Bill Polian — who openly advocated for his players to break Doug Flutie’s legs (during Indy’s 2005 win in Foxboro) and physically intimidating a Jets employee — we’d be here even longer.

You can’t let the facts get in the way of a good storyline, though.

smanza@projo.com