An improbable day all around

Big news from Chicago: Payton loses at Payton’s Place. Bigger news from Indianapolis: PEYTON WINS!

Sean Payton couldn’t extend the New Orleans Saints’ inspirational run past the franchise’s first NFC championship game on Sunday, so the Chicago Bears are going to the Super Bowl for the first time since the days of Walter Payton running wild at Soldier Field.

A few hours later, Peyton Manning had a pass intercepted by New England returned for a touchdown (been there, seen that) and fell behind the Patriots by 18 points (been there, seen that) and then rallied the Indianapolis Colts to 32 second-half points to put a Manning in the Super Bowl (never seen anything like that before).

Improbably, the Bears not only stopped the Brees-Bush-Deuce express, but routed the Saints, 39-14 -- scoring about 30 more points than anyone expected from a team quarterbacked by Rex Grossman.

More improbably, the Colts erased a 21-3 deficit against a Patriots franchise that never relinquishes 21-3 leads in AFC title games, with the quarterback who doesn’t win the big one piecing together the biggest comeback ever in a conference final -- Manning over Tom Brady, Tony Dungy over Bill Belichick, 38-34.

That sets up a what’s-he-doing-here? quarterback matchup in Miami between Grossman and Manning.

Ordinarily, the prospect of playing an important game against a University of Florida quarterback would not bode well for Manning. Tennessee could never beat Florida while Manning was a Volunteer, which is another reason the words “Mr. Clutch” and “Manning” were never used in the same sentence until now.

But this quarterback from Florida is named Grossman, who had a regular season so shaky that the best thing anyone said about him during the last two weeks was, “OK, he completed only five of his first 20 throws, granted, but he didn’t look bad on that third-down pass.” Manning’s movement into the Super Bowl is historic in that it defies the Red Sox curse of the NFL -- the Manning family jinx.

Archie played 13 years with New Orleans, Houston and Minnesota and never appeared in a playoff game.

Eli now has three seasons in with the New York Giants and is winless in two playoff starts.

Peyton, nearing the end of his ninth professional season, had a 3-6 postseason record before going 3-0 in January 2007.

Before Sunday, that equaled 25 Manning years without a Super Bowl appearance, not counting commercials.

Grossman’s passage to Miami is also historic.

Now, Trent Dilfer has half a chance to shed the label, “Worst Quarterback to Win a Super Bowl.” This season, Chicago Coach Lovie Smith heard more chants of “Griese! Griese!” than anyone since the glory days of the Miami Dolphins. You might call Smith a believer, which would make him a minority of one, give or take Grossman’s parents. You could just as well call him stubborn, quietly desperate, a masochist, or just another Bears coach waiting for snow in Chicago in January and the arrival of a warm-weather opponent with a quarterback bearing the initials D.B.

Dieter Brock, Jan. 1986.

Drew Brees, Jan. 2007.

NFC title game in Jan. 1986: Brock sees how many snow angels he can create with the occasional forward pass; Bears win, 24-0.

NFC title game in Jan. 2007: Brees passes for 354 yards -- or 298 more than Brock -- but his three second-half mistakes (intentional grounding for a safety, fumble, interception) help turn a taut 16-14 struggle into a 39-14 runaway.

Give him home-field advantage and a well-timed cold snap and four opposition turnovers and an All-Pro kicker on his roster and a 123-yard rushing performance by Thomas Jones and cozy field position most of the afternoon, and Grossman can do some things.

Much has already been made of the history-making coaching matchup in Super Bowl XLI: Smith and Dungy becoming the first African American coaches to reach the big game.

This is a breakthrough far more overdue than anything managed by Manning. It should not have taken four decades of Super Bowls for it to happen, but when it comes to head-coach hiring practices, the NFL has a more embarrassing record than anything perpetrated on the field by the Detroit Lions.

The Colts have been installed as seven-point favorites, a spread that figures to grow as soon as the land remembers:

a) The game will be played in Miami, not Chicago.

b) The NFC remains the NFC.

c) It’s Manning against Grossman.

On paper, this is the biggest quarterbacking mismatch in Super Bowl history. It’s difficult to say which other one comes close. Troy Aikman-Neil O’Donnell in ‘96? Steve Young-Stan Humphries in ‘95? Joe Theismann-David Woodley in ‘83?

Dilfer won in 2001 because he had a fighting chance. He won, 34-7, because the other guys had Kerry Collins.

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mike.penner@latimes.com