Super Bowl 2014: Top 5 storylines for the big game

The long wait is nearly over for Super Bowl XLVIII between the Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos from MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. at 6:30 p.m. ET in a matchup featuring the league’s top defense of Seattle vs. the historically dominant offense of the Broncos.

The matchup between league’s top defense and offense meeting in the big game is a rarity as it has only happened four times, most recently New York Giants No. 1 defense defeated the Buffalo Bills No. 1 offense in Super Bowl XXV.

Almost as rare as the top offenses and defenses meeting is the top seeds from the NFC and AFC meeting in the Super Bowl as that has only happened one other time in the past two decades when Peyton Manning led the Indianapolis Colts vs. the New Orleans Saints in XLIV.

Much of the dialogue in anticipation of this game has centered around the weather in New York/New Jersey where the first outdoor Super Bowl in a cold weather city had the potential to disrupt the game or even force it to be postponed in the event of a snowstorm.

All that talk may just be hot air as the forecast calls for a high of 51 and a temperature at 42 degrees at kickoff with zero percent chance for precipitation and nine mph wind out of the northwest. The previous coldest Super Bowl was in 1972 at Tulane Stadium where the temperature was 39 degrees.

So while the weather may no longer be one of the biggest storylines to monitor for Sunday’s big game these five certainly will be ones to watch.