My plan is to co-write a book titled The Last Night of the Patriots Dynasty with Mike Hurley some day. On the cover I hope to have Jay Alford trying to actually end Tom Brady’s life from the final seconds of Super Bowl XLII, the way Mariano Rivera is standing hopelessly on the mound at Yankee Stadium on the cover of Buster Olney’s book. The problem is that the way the Patriots franchise is going I’m going to have to keep re-releasing the book in different versions every year with new material since it never seems to end with the Patriots.

New Englanders like to think the Patriots are the Yankees. And from 2001 on, they have been (unless the Steelers find a way to win this year), but now they have finally completed their transformation into what the Yankees were from 2001-2008 and what Mike Lupica likes to call “The Greatest Regular Season Show on Earth.”

On Friday, I talked about how I wanted to see “the look” on the faces of Patriots fans on Sunday night after a New England loss. And on Sunday night when I walked down Washington Street in Hoboken to get pizza after the game and “J-E-T-S!” chants were breaking out all around me as if Fireman Ed was leading a parade, I began to think back to February 4, 2008, the day after Super Bowl XLII, when I woke up and walked down Hanover Street in the North End in Boston and it looked like the opening scene from I Am Legend. There was no one to be found and if you did find someone they looked like their whole life had been devastated. It was a great feeling.

Obviously the feeling from the last few days isn’t nearly the same as three years ago since I’m not a Jets fan and this wasn’t the Super Bowl. It’s nowhere near the level of happiness that I experienced after Super Bowl XLII. It’s more like the relief I felt when the Rays beat the Red Sox in Game 7 of the 2008 ALCS. I still despise the Jets (aside from Sunday when I joined Gang Green for a day), but I didn’t hesitate to start sending text messages to Boston friends that sent me text messages after the Rangers finished off the Yankees in the ALCS when they didn’t have a horse in that race. There are still a few people that haven’t responded, and it’s now Wednesday, so I’m actually worried for their well being after that embarrassment.

I watched Super Bowl XLII with my current roommate, Redz (also a Giants fan), and I watched Sunday’s game with him as well – both games the Patriots couldn’t possibly lose. And after the game on Sunday, I asked him “Would you rather be here right now where everyone is in a good mood since the Jets won and Boston lost, or would you rather be in Boston to see that “look” again on the faces of everyone who predicted another Super Bowl because Bill Belichick and Tom Brady can’t lose?” We both agreed. We wished we were in Boston.

The Jets’ win wasn’t exactly Team USA beating the Soviet Union in 1980, but the Jets are faced with the same situation Team USA was. Team USA was built to win the gold medal, but the team they were built to beat they ended up playing in the semis. And after they beat the Russians, it was almost as if they had already won the gold, but they still had to play Finland and not have a letdown that would make the win over the Soviets a lot less meaningful. The Yankees were in the same spot following the 2003 ALCS and they had a letdown against the Marlins in the World Series and it took away from how significant Aaron Boone’s home run was. Beating the Steelers on the road for the second time will be hard enough. Beating them after upsetting the Patriots will be even harder.

Now that the Patriots are home for good and the Jets have advanced, I find myself in another predicament in that I’m running out of teams to hope win the Super Bowl. Most of the teams I didn’t want to see win the Super Bowl are gone. The Eagles are gone. The Patriots are gone. The Ravens are gone. The Saints are gone. But the Jets, Steelers and Packers are still alive and well. The Bears are my only option left and I don’t know if they’re the answer. I feel like a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and I’m running out of lifelines, and I’m running out of options.

Jets-Steelers is another matchup that has a lot of potentially awful repercussions. The Jets could win and send the city into a green-and-white frenzy. Or Ben Roethlisberger, the role model he is, could win for the third time in six years. And on the other side, Joe Buck’s Packers and Aaron Rodgers are still in it. That leaves me with only one option … become a Jay Cutler fan and hope Soldier Field can propel the Bears into the Super Bowl and then hope they get lucky in Dallas. I don’t think I can trick my brain into believing in Jay Cutler for a second let alone an entire game on Sunday and then again on Super Sunday.

I still have a few days to sort out the pros and cons of what’s left of the NFL playoffs and the teams still playing and who I want to win, but for now, it’s time to look back on a win that solidified the Jets and a loss that shook New England’s foundation on the same night of the Golden Globes. It’s been almost three days since the Boston sports world got kicked in the privates and bottled, and the time to capitalize on the misery of my Boston friends who thought that the Jets would lay down and serve as a red carpet for the Patriots to the AFC Championship is coming to an end. With the attention turning to Jets-Steelers and the upset of Sunday fading, let’s take one more look back at the events of Sunday by handing out some hardware. I just wish I had Ricky Gervais to give an opening monologue.

The Trent Dilfer Award for “The ‘Experts’ Were Wrong Again”
I will never forget during the 2008 preseason when Trent Dilfer said, “The Giants will be the biggest disappointment of the year and will miss the playoffs.” They did end up disappointing the tri-state area after Plaxico decided to carry a gun into Manhattan, but starting the year 11-1 should have had ESPN searching for a new NFL analyst.

I like Bill Belichick because he likes the Yankees. I like that he’s consistent with his answers to questions from the media. Dumb questions get dumb answers, and if you have a problem with Belichick’s answers then you really have a problem with the questions. But my whole problem with Bill Belichick isn’t a problem that he created. My problem with Bill Belichick is a problem that the media created for him.

All week we heard about how “You don’t want Bill Belichick to have two weeks to plan against you. You DON’T WANT Bill Belichick to have two weeks!” Now Belichick didn’t ask for people to believe in this theory that if given an extra week to prepare he’s untouchable and will think up this flawless plan to beat any opponent. We heard about it before Super Bowl XLII. We heard about it this week. But the last time I checked, Rex Ryan is a coach in the NFL too, and he might not have three rings, but in Bill Belichick’s first two seasons in the NFL he didn’t make back-to-back AFC Championships.

The three Super bowls in four years at the beginning of the decade put Belichick in a league of his own, but since the Patriots’ Super Bowl win over the Eagles, they have gone 5-5 in the postseason, losing the last two years at home in their first game of the playoffs each time.

It’s hard to have a winning record in the NFL. It’s even harder to win a championship let alone three of them in a four-year span, which is basically impossible at this point in a league of parody. But maybe it’s time to relax on thinking that it’s a foregone conclusion that Bill Belichick WILL win in the playoffs, and if given an extra week, will embarrass his opponent.

The Tom Brady Award for “Making A Prediction When You Say You Don’t Make Predictions”

Let’s go back to the week leading up to Super Bowl XLII …

“We don’t make predictions. We just let our play do the talking,” said Tom Brady.

Now let’s go back to last week …

“We’re just going to do our talking on the field. That’s the way we’ve always chosen to do,” said Tom Brady.

Umm … it might be time for TB12 to find a new line.

A lot of comparisons are being made between the Giants game plan in Super Bowl XLII and the Jets game plan on Sunday since both times Tom Brady didn’t look like himself in a big game. But in 2007, the Giants had Brady on his back the whole game with continuous pressure and he didn’t have any time. Brady had time against the Jets, he just couldn’t find an open receiver.

Brady looked like he was traded to the Patriots on Sunday morning and had three hours to learn the entire playbook and the offense. He was standing back in his statue stance without pressure, panning the field and still couldn’t make a play. And when he did try to hit a receiver, they usually weren’t looking or the ball would land at their feet.

The look on Tom Brady’s face throughout the game look like he just got pantsed waiting for the bus in junior high school, and I would like to thank the TV director for all those shots of him.

The Geico Insurance Award for “Mike Westhoff Probably Keyed The Cars Of Everyone On Special Teams”

If you told me that Nick Folk and Steve Weatherford went out drinking on Saturday night, I would say, “OK, that makes sense.” Could a kicker and punter have had a worse combined effort? OK, Giants fans, don’t answer that.

When David Harris didn’t run it in on the Tom Brady interception, I thought, “Nooo!” When the Jets ran three running plays after that, I thought, “Nooo!” When Nick Folk missed the field goal, I yelled, “Nooo!” and started thinking about the Jets letting the Patriots off the hook as if a team had just left the bases loaded against the Red Sox with no outs in the first inning.
And then when Weatherford decided that he would make Matt Dodge not feel so bad about his career and started bombing punts into the end zone, I figured the Jets couldn’t win with their kicker and punter taking the day off. Thankfully, I was wrong.

The Eli Manning Award for “People Didn’t Believe in Eli Either”

I don’t know what Mark Sanchez is just yet. I don’t know what he’s going to be. But I know one thing: he wins playoff games. And I was wrong about him all along and I admit it.

Sure, Mark Sanchez was brought into a great situation in New York and it’s not like he was drafted by an expansion team and asked to be a hero and carry the team, but he can only play in the situation he was put into, and he’s a doing an impressive job in it. In the last calendar year, he has more playoff wins (4) than Tom Brady has in the last three years, and he has as many playoff wins as Eli Manning has in career (all four of Eli’s came in 2007).

I want to not like Mark Sanchez. I used to not like him. I still kind of don’t. But he says the right things and goes out and plays hard. And he made Pete Carroll look like the jerk he is by proving him wrong about leaving college early. It’s no secret that Carroll only wanted Sanchez to stay at USC for his own personal reasons. A class act that Pete Carroll is!

No, I’m not about to jump on the Sanchize bandwagon, but I respect him, and he’s making it hard for me to not like him.

The Tino Martinez Award for “Everyone Thought He Would Bring Back The Winning Magic In His Second Stint With The Team”

On Opening Night at Yankee Stadium in 2005 when Tino Martinez came in as a defensive replacement, I honestly thought the right field bleachers were going to cave in. The cement under my feet felt like it was going to give at any moment, and when Tino made that diving stop after being in the game for only seconds, I was confident a riot was going to ensue. That is what Tino meant to Yankees fans and that is how badly people thought that by brining Tino back, the Yankees were brining back what they had lost in the four years he was away from the team: the ability to win it all.

The Patriots would have beaten the Colts in 2006 if Deion Branch were on the field instead of Reche Caldwell. Instead he was in Seattle because the Patriots didn’t want to pay their two-time champion and Super Bowl XXXIX MVP.

This year, the Patriots got rid of Randy Moss to bring Deion Branch back, and all anyone heard about was that Deion Branch “is the Patriots” and everything they have been about since 2001. Now that Branch was back in the mix, the Patriots were going to win the types of games they won when they were winning championships.

Well there was Deion Branch dropping the pass that would have given the Patriots a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter, and there he was after the game crying the way that LaDainian Tomlinson cried when the Patriots celebrated on the field in San Diego. The way I feel embarrassed for Larry David when he does something in Curb Your Enthusiasm that just makes you feel awkward on the couch of your living room is how embarrassed I felt for Branch complaining about the Jets “flying” around Gillette Stadium. If you don’t want the opposing wide receivers to run around your field pretending to be jets then don’t lose home playoff games as the No. 1 seed and heavy favorites. Otherwise say that it’s disappointing you lost, accept blame and responsibility and clean out your locker and go home until next year.

The Christian Bale Award for “Best Supporting Actor”

I’m scared of what Bart Scott has in store for sound bytes if the Jets win the AFC. I’m petrified of what he is capable of if the Jets win the Super Bowl. And I think Sal Paolantonio probably feels the same way.

I respect Bart Scott because when he talks trash he actually talks trash. He doesn’t say “he is going to let his play on the field do the talking” and he doesn’t need to make clever foot references in a press conference to get his point across. He just comes out and tells it how he sees it and doesn’t care who he offends. And then he backs it up.

The Nick Swisher Award for “Making Poor Decisions On Your Own”
I hate when Nick Swisher tries to bunt because he should never be bunting and he simply doesn’t know how to bunt. But Swisher tries his stupid bunting in the middle of July against the Orioles. What Patrick Chung did (if he really did call for the fake punt) would be like Swisher bunting in the fifth game of the ALDS with absolutely nothing to gain.

How is Patrick Chung, a second-year player, allowed to make that decision? How does Bill Belichick allow that play to be called? In the end, Chung isn’t the one that this loss taints. It taints Belichick and Tom Brady, the faces of the franchise. Just like when the Colts took the penalty for roughing the punter near the end of the Jets game and they showed Peyton Manning on the sidelines, you just knew he was thinking, “This loss will come back to me and be a blemish on my career and not the career of the 53rd man on the roster playing on special teams.” Unacceptable play, but, hey, I’ll take it.

The Billy Walters Award for “Being The Man”

On Sunday night, CBS ran a piece on 60 Minutes about Billy Walters, a sports gambler in Nevada that bets hundreds of thousands of dollars on football and basketball games and won $3.5 million on the Saints in last year’s Super Bowl.

I take back anything bad I have said about Rex Ryan. He’s a hero. And I’m not joking when I say that. He’s the man.

When Rex ran into the end zone to celebrate Shonn Greene’s touchdown with the players, he won me over. For a minute I thought Rex was the one that scored the touchdown and seeing the players celebrating with him and letting him be one of the guys for that moment made you realize that when Bart Scott says he would “die for Rex Ryan” that he probably isn’t the only one on the Jets that would.

When I look at my team, the Giants, I see a team that if Tom Coughlin was fired tomorrow, the players would give remarks like, “football is a business” or “it’s not Tom’s fault” when really the majority of the team probably wouldn’t care and would likely be happy. (And Antrel Rolle verified this on Tuesday.) If Rex were fired, I could see the Jets threatening to not show up and play. That’s the vibe you get from this Jets “team” and it’s something you don’t get from the Giants.

The Jets are Rex Ryan. The entire team has bought into his trash talking system, and during Hard Knocks when he kept reiterating, “Play Like A Jet” I thought, “What is wrong with this guy?” Playing like a Jet meant not winning championships. But what Rex meant was that “Playing Like A Jet” meant “Playing Like A Jet From When I Took Over This Team.” Nothing with the Jets before Rex Ryan matters and like he said, “Same old Jets going to the AFC Championship for the second year in a row.”

Jets. Patriots. Someone must win. This really is my nightmare.

There are people that wonder why I despise the Patriots since they play in the AFC, and there are people that wonder why I despise the Jets since they represent New York. Well, let me explain…

I grew up as a Giants fan and therefore it’s a birthright to not like the Jets. I am not a New York fan that likes all New York teams just because they are New York. To me, there is no such thing as having an AL team and an NL team or an AFC team and an NFC team. You have one team and that’s it. And as someone that lived in Boston for five years, in which the Patriots won the Super Bowl and the Red Sox won two World Series, I have a hatred for Boston sports team that runs much deeper than the normal New York fan that dislikes Boston teams.

So now on Sunday, I am forced to sit back and watch as one of the two fan bases I am not a fan of gets to celebrate a trip to the AFC Championship. It’s not as bad as if the Mets and Red Sox were to ever meet in the World Series again, but it’s up there.

Back on December 6, I went to Gillette Stadium for Monday Night Football thinking that I would see a possible AFC Championship preview and what was being hyped up as the “Regular Season Super Bowl.” After about 10 minutes of real time, the “Regular Season Super Bowl” became as painful and boring to watch as Ronnie and Sammi have become. I left Massachusetts thinking, “45-3? Did that really just happen?” and thinking that the Jets might be taking the Tom Coughlin Way To Postseason Elimination: an epic collapse.

When people talk about this Sunday’s game, they talk about that Monday game. No one is bringing up the Jets’ Week 2 win over the Patriots way back in September and no one remembers that there was a time not long ago when Eric Mangini and the Browns dropped a 34 spot on the Patriots. But I guess there is a reason for that. A lot has changed since the Patriots lost to the Jets, and a lot has changed even since November 7 when the Browns embarrassed the Patriots. Mangini isn’t even the coach of the Browns anymore and on Wednesday, he was on ESPN talking about the Browns hiring Pat Shurmur. It was so awkward I had to change the channel.

I think the Jets can win on Sunday. I hope they can. And every time I think, “How do I not take the Jets at +8.5?” I think of sitting in the press box at Gillette Stadium a month ago and wondering if the Patriots would ever punt again this season. I hope that the Jets are able to play the way they did against the Colts and keep the game close, but I keep envisioning Tom Brady completing pass after pass across the middle and Mark Sanchez doing what he usually does in Foxboro: throw interceptions (seven interceptions in two games).

The Jets are playing with house money. They went into Indianapolis as the underdog and won. Now they are going into Foxboro against the No. 1 seed and facing the best head coach/quarterback maybe ever and being asked to win again. The only problem is that the Jets haven’t accepted this underdog role, so they sort of took away the whole “house money” concept. Over the last week they have run their mouths off like the wild teens that go on Maury and end up in boot camp and now no one feels bad for the Jets or views them as an underdog away from the point spread.

The Patriots are the ones in the tough spot. A lot of people believe the Jets-Patriots rivalry is equal to or greater than the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, but any sober person would tell you that’s not the case. The Patriots aren’t the Yankees of the NFL, but they are in the same spot that the Yankees found themselves in every season up until the devastating events of 2004. If the Patriots win, they are supposed to win (whether or not Rex Ryan believes that), and if they lose, it’s catastrophic, as NESN.com’s Jeff Howe told me. Any Yankees fan that enjoys playing the Red Sox in the ALCS is delusional. There is nothing fun about it. There is nothing to gain and everything to lose. And if the Yankees and Red Sox were to meet in the 2011 ALCS, the same standards would hold true even though the Red Sox have won two World Series in the last seven years.

I’m not sure if the Jets will win in Foxboro, but I know that’s it’s a lot better for me personally if they do. Here are five reasons why a Jets’ win on Sunday would be good for me (aside from the obvious fact that the Patriots would be losing):

1. The Chance For Rex Ryan To Get To The Super Bowl

I once saw Dave Attell do stand-up and the show started at midnight, and Dave had already done two shows that night. Saying he was drunk would be like saying Marisa Miller is good looking. But as the show went on and on and a waiter kept delivering drinks to Dave, the show only got better and better. I’m sure the people at the 8:00 show got a good show, but it was definitely not as good as the people who went to the 10:00 show, and their show definitely was not as good the show that I saw at midnight. This is what’s happening with Rex Ryan.

Rex started off talking trash on the first episode of Hard Knocks, it got better once the regular season started and then once the Jets began to play important games. Then the playoffs started and he began to call out anyone that walked by him leading up to this game where he has used material on Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. Just think about some of the crazy things that have come out of Rex’s mouth and then think about this: he has NEVER been the head coach for a team in the Super Bowl. Imagine Rex Ryan with two weeks between the AFC Championship (if the Jets can get there) and the Super Bowl? I think only a two-week marathon of The Office or Friday Night Lights could keep me as entertained.

2. Revenge For LaDainian Tomlinson And Antonio Cromartie

I have never been a LaDainian Tomlinson guy since he would always find a way to find the bench during postseason games against the Patriots when he would sit with his helmet still on and tinted visor with the oversized Chargers coat keeping him warm as he kept the bench warm. And I didn’t get why it was such a big deal what the Patriots did after they beat the Chargers in the AFC Championship in 2006 when they celebrated on the Chargers field. Don’t want teams celebrating on your field? Don’t lose at home in the playoffs. It’s pretty simple.

But Tomlinson and Antonio Cromartie have great disrespect for Tom Brady and Bill Belichick and the Patriots, and they are just waiting to erupt with trash talk after finally beating the Patriots in the postseason. The kind of trash talk that will show up as “[expletive]” in the papers and with the censored “BEEEEEEEEP” on TV. Tomlinson and Cromartie find things to say to Brady and the Patriots now and they have never been successful against them in their careers. It’s scary to think what they are capable of if they do finally beat them.

3. “We’re only going to score 17 points?”

On December 7, I said, “I should hate Tom Brady. He is a legend and an icon in Boston and has brought immense happiness three times to the sports city I hate more than any other. But everything about Tom Brady says I should like him.”

I still don’t know if I like Tom Brady or not, but I know one thing: I don’t like the way he talks to the media about big games. “We will let our play do the talking on the field.” I think I heard that comment before. Oh, that’s right, I did.

Listen, Antonio Cromartie is in no place to be saying what he did to Tom Brady when he should be worried about not having a repeat performance from that Monday night game. But, it’s always fun to see how uncomfortable Tom Brady gets when someone has choice words for him and to see his reaction.

I have a question for Tom: Is Plax going to play defense?

4. Patriots Fans Dealing With The Ultimate Embarrassment

Patriots fans still can’t believe they lost to the Giants in Super Bowl XLII. They can’t believe that David Tyree made the helmet catch or that Plaxico Burress was as open as he was in the end zone for the game-winning touchdown. But what they really can’t believe is that they lost to Eli Manning with the perfect season on the line.

No one in New England gives Eli respect. Then again, no one outside of the tri-state area that doesn’t see him play every game does, so it’s not surprising. But there is a big difference between losing to Eli Manning and Mark Sanchez. A big difference. If you think Patriots fans have a hard time still accepting that the Mannings ended their season in consecutive years, think about the trouble they will have sleeping if Mark Sanchez goes into Foxboro and comes out with a trip to the AFC Championship

5. Daggerrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Since the Patriots’ last Super Bowl win, their season have finished the following ways…

2005: Lost to Broncos in divisional round

2006: Lost to Colts in AFC Championship

2007: Lost to Giants in Super Bowl

2008: Didn’t make playoffs

2009: Lost to Ravens in wild card round

It has been dagger (Champ Bailey) after dagger (Peyton Manning erasing an 18-point deficit) after dagger (Eli to Tyree) after dagger (Brady’s ACL) after dagger (Ray Rice) for the Patriots. A loss at home as the No. 1 seed to their division rival … well, that certainly won’t be easy to get over.

I will never forget watching Super Bowl XLII at my friends’ apartment where the ratio of Patriots fans to Giants fans was about 35 to 5. During the second half, all the Giants went into one of the bedrooms to watch the game, and when Randy Moss caught the go-ahead touchdown pass with 2:42 left, all of the Patriots fans came charging into the room where we were and started prematurely screaming and yelling in our faces. Minutes later we came crashing into the living room where it looked like every Patriots fan at the party had just heard a car had run over their family dog. It was one of the greatest feelings of my life. The look that everyone in the dorm saw on my face when Ruben Sierra grounded out to end Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS had once again found the faces of Boston sports fans.

Part of me wants to go to my friends’ apartment in Boston this Sunday to watch the game for the chance to see that look again. But another part of me knows what it’s like to see the jubilation of winning on Boston fans’ faces, and even if I don’t like the Jets, it will pain me.

On Wednesday, I texted my friend Mike Hurley, a lifelong Patriots fan, and asked him “On a scale of 1-10, how devastating will a loss on Sunday be?” He replied, “16.5.” I have seen that 16.5 before. Actually I saw what was probably a 36.5. I want to see it again.

For the first time and only time in my life … J-E-T-S! JETS! JETS! JETS!

This column was originally published on WFAN.com on Jan. 11, 2011.

I hate football. Not really, but the Giants are giving me no choice.

Two weeks ago, I asked for three things for Christmas. I asked for the Yankees to produce something that resembles a starting rotation that can compete in the AL East, the Giants to make the playoffs and for the Knicks to land Carmelo Anthony. The Giants were eliminated from the playoffs on Sunday, and the Yankees are thinking about bringing in Jeff Francis or Jeremy Bonderman to round out their rotation. Carmelo might as well just get traded to the Nets or Bulls now and put me out of my misery.

I wish I could have been in the locker room prior to the Giants-Packers game and delivered the pregame speech for the Giants. It wouldn’t have been like the speech in Rudy when Rudy gets up on the stool and starts with, “We’re gonna go inside, we’re gonna go outside, inside and outside.” It would have been more like the famous Bobby Knight halftime speech (which you can find on YouTube uncensored), highlighted by the line, “You will not put me in that position again!”

Well, the Giants put me in that position again. That position is being on the outside looking in on the NFL playoffs for the second straight year.

Tom Coughlin will return in 2011 in search of a three-peat of collapses to unseat the Mets as the worst late-season team in the city, but hopefully with him, Plaxico Burress will return. I’m not sure what Plaxico can bring at the age of 34 and having not caught a pass in the NFL since Nov. 16, 2008, but I do know that the Giants are 20-18, including their only playoff game, since he last appeared in a game for them.

While Brandon Jacobs was busy packing up his equipment in a trash bag and giving Bruce Boudreau a run for his money with F-bombs as he cursed out photographers, Giants fans are forced to watch the playoffs without a horse in the race … a race that includes the chance for many hated franchises of mine to win it all. I’m forced to sit and watch the NFL playoffs for the second year in a row as a spectator while my Jets fan friends and Patriots fan friends get to actually participate. Good thing there’s beer and point spreads.

Someone will win Super Bowl XLV, but it won’t be the Giants. The scary part is it will likely be a team that I don’t want to see win the Super Bowl. And because the Giants aren’t going to The Dance, I have to sit back and think of which team I would want to take to The Dance with me and which team I would rather leave at the front door waiting for me to pick them up for The Dance.

It wasn’t easy, but I was finally able to sort out the 12 playoff teams from which team I would most like to see win Super Bowl XLV to which team I don’t want to see win at all. Here it is:

1. Colts
I’m a Peyton Manning fan and a year ago I was certain that Peyton Manning was going to win his second Super Bowl and solidify his place as arguably the greatest quarterback ever. Then there was that Pierre Garcon drop, the onside kick and the pick six, and Peyton left Miami with as many rings as his brother.

Peyton is now 34. He isn’t retiring tomorrow, but he also isn’t getting younger and is running out of time in his prime when he will be as dangerous as he now. If he can’t win it this year, it’s just another year closer to retirement for him, and another year with just one Super Bowl to his name, and that will keep him out of the conversation as the greatest ever.

2. Chiefs
It would just be weird if the Chiefs won the Super Bowl, but hey, it’s better than a lot of other options.

A Super Bowl would bring Kansas City some sort of happiness since their baseball team hasn’t for a while and likely won’t for a while. It would be a nice story if Matt Cassel wins and will likely cause crazed sports radio callers in Boston to argue that the Patriots should have never gotten rid of Matt Cassel, no matter how insane that sounds. And if you think I’m kidding, you have never lived in Boston. Go Chiefs!

3. Seahawks
Who knows why Randy Edsall left UConn the way he did? But he’s a college coach and with college coaches, you can’t be surprised when they do sleazy things. Enter, Pete Carroll … the poster boy for sleaze.

Carroll had so many NCAA violations that the NCAA gave USC a two-year bowl ban and eliminated 30 football scholarships from the school. And when Carroll sensed the NCAA closing in to bring the bill, he said he had to go to the bathroom and left USC with the check. I don’t feel bad for USC, but what a stand-up guy Pete Carroll is!

Part of me wants the Seahawks to win it all because it will just be an absolute joke if a 7-9 team wins the Super Bowl. But the bigger part of me wants the Saints to beat them 67-3 to prove how much of a joke it is that a 7-9 team can make the playoffs. And I can’t help but think of Pete Carroll during his postgame press conference on Sunday night saying how proud he is of his team and sounding like Rex Ryan by being ecstatic over an accomplishment that isn’t worth celebrating.

All I know is in Week 9 when the Giants embarrassed the Seahawks in Seattle, I thought Charlie Whitehurst might never watch another football game for the rest of his life let alone play in one that would send the Seahawks to the playoffs. Now he might start a playoff game, and if he wins a playoff game, I think I’m done with football.

4. Falcons
I’m very protective of Eli Manning. I’m like the parent of the kid that all the other kids pick on. And truthfully, you shouldn’t feel that way about your franchise quarterback, but that’s life as a Giants fan.

Matt Ryan hasn’t won a playoff game, but he didn’t bring the Falcons to a 13-3 record this season, and the hype around him rivals the hype around Aaron Rodgers. And there isn’t a non-Giants fan that doesn’t think Ryan is better than Eli. That’s fine, but I hope the Falcons go down because of it.

5. Bears
I promised I wouldn’t say another bad word about Jay Cutler if he beat the Packers in Week 17. So what did he do? Oh, just throw a pick in the red zone and another to end the game. Nothing major.

Here I’m nervous that Lovie Smith might pull the plug on the game and not start Cutler or take him out early and ruin the Giants’ chances. I have never been so angry to not see Todd Collins in a game I needed to win because the way the Bears defense played, I think they would have won the game if anyone other than Cutler started.

When the Bears were 3-0 and the Giants embarrassed them in Week 4 and forced Cutler and Collins out of the game and Caleb Hanie had to take snaps, I thought, “That’s the end of the Bears.” But they somehow managed to win eight more games. But I can’t root for a team the Giants crushed and a team that let the Patriots come to Soldier Field and blow them out by 29 points.

6. Steelers
I have never liked the Steelers in the least bit, and that was before Ben Roethlisberger finally got caught for being such a good role model. There’s no way you can pull for Big Ben if you aren’t from Pittsburgh.

7. Ravens
I’m still not over Super Bowl XXXV. I’m still not over disliking Ray Lewis or Terrell Suggs or Joe Flacco’s unibrown.

8. Saints
Of course the Saints would barely beat the Falcons on the road and then lose to the Buccaneers at home in Week 17 to close the back door to the playoffs for the Giants. Of course.

The Friday before the last Super Bowl, I wrote:

“But should the lasting image of the 2009 NFL season be the visor-wearing Sean Payton embracing Jeremy Shockey? Is seeing New Orleans win its first Super Bowl enough to want Jeremy Shockey to win a Super Bowl? Is the Saints getting their Walt Disney-like win worth knowing that Jerry Reese’s trade of the disgruntled and disrespectful tight end worked out in New Orleans’ favor? No, no and no.”

The same holds true for the 2010 NFL season.

9. Packers
My distaste for Green Bay has grown in recent years and after the embarrassment against the Giants it is at an all-time high. If you combine what the Packers did to the Giants with the national lovefest for Aaron Rodgers, it’s enough to make you sick. How about we let Aaron Rodgers win a playoff game before we put him in the same conversation as Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees?

I’m not really worried about Green Bay winning it all because their running game is just embarrassing. And I know this because after Ryan Grant got hurt, I was forced to pick up Brandon Jackson in fantasy football, and Jackson was so bad that I will never play fantasy football ever again. Aaron Rodgers didn’t need to get a concussion against the Lions, but the Packers kept running the ball against a terrible secondary for some reason, and then why Rodgers tried to run the ball himself, he got popped. It wasn’t until Matt Flynn came into the game that the Packers started to throw the ball, and nearly beat the Lions and then the Patriots because of it.

One question: Do you think FOX will let Joe Buck wear his Aaron Rodgers jersey under his suit for playoff games, or is he only allowed to do that for regular season games?

10. Jets
I don’t like thinking about a Jets parade and J-E-T-S echoing through the city streets. It would be like the Mets winning, and maybe even worse. I have spent a lot of my life despising the Jets and here I’m making a list of the order of which team I want to win the Super Bowl, and they aren’t even last. Richard, what’s happening?

But how fun it would be listening to Joe and Evan after a Jets’ Super Bowl win? Probably fun enough for me to actually pull for them if they play either of the next two teams along the way.

11. Patriots
It was a hard decision to figure out which team I wanted to win less between the Patriots and Eagles, and I nearly turned to my friend’s Magic 8 ball to make the decision for me.

There is no way I want the Patriots to win the Super Bowl. None at all. I would rather walk across the George Washington Bridge naked, during rush hour, while it’s freezing rain than see the Patriots win. But if they do win, I understand. They’re 14-2 and the No. 1 overall seed. They have the best coach and the best quarterback in the league.

However, a Patriots’ championship would put a serious damper on the possibility of adding more chapters to The Last Night of the Patriots Dynasty book that I plan to write with Mike Hurley.

12. Eagles
This is my nightmare!

The Third Annual Eagles Devastate My Life Party was even more of a gongshow than the first and second. 31-10. 8:17 left. Why? Whyyy? Whyyyyy?

There are no redeeming qualities about the Eagles. I’m not a Mike Vick (hat tip to Cris Collinsworth) fan like the rest of the country and there is nothing to like about DeSean Jackson’s Broadway shows in the end zone. I wish Andy Reid had gotten run out of Philly along with Donovan McNabb and there is something that makes me angry when Reid puts up one finger for the extra point when it’s obvious the Eagles wouldn’t be going for two in the situation (I know a lot of coaches do this, but only when Reid does it, does it make me mad).

Before the Packers game I wrote:

“I don’t think you can have your wife cheat on you, take all your money and find out your kids aren’t really your kids and decide to get back out and start dating the following weekend. It just doesn’t work like that. And I don’t know if the Giants can come back from such a devastating defeat and win in Lambeau Field this Sunday no matter what Antrel Rolle says or guarantees.”

And unfortunately, I was right.

Philadelphia already took Cliff Lee away from me. They aren’t going to win the Super Bowl. They can’t.