Can the Saints pull off a checkmate?

Reporting from Miami Gardens, Fla. — 

Thirteen years ago, IBM built a chess-playing computer called Deep Blue that beat the world champion before being dismantled.

The deep-blue-clad Indianapolis Colts have their own version, and he wears No. 18.

When it comes to the NFL chess match, there’s no better player than Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, and that’s something Jonathan Vilma knows all too well.

Vilma, the middle linebacker for the New Orleans Saints, is preparing for a mental and physical chess match with Manning on Sunday in Super Bowl XLIV. The two will spend the day within 10 yards of each other, with Vilma making all the defensive calls and adjustments just the way Manning does on the other side of the ball.

“He wants to put his offense in the best position possible,” Vilma said. “To counter that, I want to put my defense in the best position possible. There may be a time where he is checking into something, and I may know to check to something else. I may not have enough time. We’ll see how it goes.”

From a defensive standpoint, the name of the game is disguise. As soon as Manning figures out what the Saints are trying to do, whether it be man or zone coverage, the quarterback will check into a play he feels will work best. He’s the best in the business when it comes to using almost the entire play clock to dial the right strategy.

“It’s a little bit of controlled chaos out there,” Manning said. “We are all just trying to get on the same page. We don’t huddle, so we do make calls at the line of scrimmage.

“Just because we might change a play or signal something new, or point at somebody, that doesn’t have anything to do necessarily with the success of the play. It is about, can you block them, can you get open, can you get the ball to the open receiver? For the most part this season, our post-snap execution has been solid, and that’s what’s been the most important.”

The Saints will play their own game of chicken, waiting until the last possible moment to get in position as not to tip their hand . . . knowing Manning can call for the snap at any given moment.

“He’s always going to win that battle, because he can take it down to five seconds and decide he wants to check into something,” Vilma said. “I don’t have time to switch it back in those four seconds or less. I have to get everything I need out to the corners. He’ll definitely win that battle if he takes the clock down that far.”

Vilma has been talking to friends around the league who have played against Manning a lot, picking up tidbits and tips where he can.

“It’s about 50/50 with people telling me whether it’s good or bad to play that [chess-match] game -- people who have played against him, teammates, ex-teammates,” he said. “I don’t know if I want to go back and forth with him. We’ll see how the game plays out.”

Most of the focus this week has been on the battle between Manning and Saints quarterback Drew Brees. The defenses have been, if not an afterthought, an undercard.

After all, this is the first Super Bowl since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 in which both teams have defenses that finished in the bottom half of the rankings. The Colts were 18th, and the Saints were 25th.

But in some ways, the defenses are the real story. Whether it’s the Saints against Manning or the Colts against Brees, it is a question of which defense can best withstand the onslaught.

“When you watch film . . . you try to look at Peyton Manning and see if you can decipher the hand signals, if you can hear anything that he’s trying to say,” Vilma said. “Outside of that, you try to pick up little things here and there throughout the week, and hopefully it will hold up in the game.

“If it does, it will be good for us.”

sam.farmer@latimes.com

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