NEW ORLEANS - The climax to one of the National Football League’s most schizophrenic, good-news/bad-news seasons is a mere hours away.

America’s annual monument to excess – aka Super Bowl XLVII – kicks off at 6:30 p.m. EST on Sunday, here at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

Before we begin to set up the monumental clash between John and Jim Harbaugh – oh, and the one between the NFC’s San Francisco 49ers and AFC’s Baltimore Ravens to determine the league’s 93rd champion, too – let’s take a quick look back at how we got here.