If Tony Romo doesn’t overthrow Miles Austin on third-and-5 with a little over two minutes left in Dallas in Week 14, I’m not as a happy as I am right now or was all day on Monday or on Sunday night. But because Tony Romo is who he is as a quarterback, I have that same, “Is this real life?” feeling I had during the Giants’ playoff run in 2007. And if this isn’t real life, I don’t want to wake up from it.

There’s this elephant in the room that no one in the tri-state wants to talk about (well at least I don’t), but I think at this point I have to address it. That elephant in the room is that the New York Football Giants are the hottest team in football and one win away from heading back to the Super Bowl. (I’m sure Patriots fans take exception to that after their team blew out a .500 team at home for their first playoff win since the 2007 AFC Championship, and maybe 49ers fans are upset about this claim after their team beat the anti-road warrior Saints, but I don’t care.)

I have tried to keep my Giants hype and confidence to a minimum (and I will revert back to that as the weekend approaches), but right now with the Giants in the NFC Championship Game and Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees at home, I don’t think I can hold back my feelings at least for today. After Sunday’s win, I’m counting down the seconds until 6:30 p.m. this Sunday. I have put sleep on the back burner in exchange for countless hours of watching Giants playoff highlights from 2007 on YouTube like it’s porn, and I’m paying the price now since I’m overtired and in serious need of those caffeine pills that Jessie Spano was using on Saved By The Bell. But I can draft off fumes and the emotional high of a Giants’ playoff win against the 15-1 Packers for at least a few more days as long as I am awake enough to occasionally check in on my friend Tim (the Packers fan from Friday’s column) with a text message or email to make sure he hasn’t resorted to spending his life in bed like Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys until the next postseason.

I think we’re at the same point we were at in 2007 in that the Giants are the NFC team that can win the Super Bowl. I don’t think Alex Smith and the 49ers can beat Tom Brady or beat the Ravens defense in a neutral setting, especially in a dome. And for the sake of humanity, I don’t think anyone outside of New England or the Greater Baltimore area wants to see the Patriots or Ravens win the Super Bowl. Like 2007, if the Cowboys or Packers had played the Patriots in Glendale, well that “16-0” banner at Gillette Stadium would instead be a championship banner and everyday of my life I would have to hear about the Perfect Patriots: The Greatest Team Ever. I don’t think anyone out there wants to hear about the 2011 Patriots: The Team That Revitalized The Dynasty or the 2011 Ravens: The Team That Let Ray Lewis Sail Off Into The Sun As A Champion. Don’t you non-49ers, non-Patriots, non-Ravens fan want the Giants to win it all? Or am I just wrongfully assuming that everyone else is in the sports world that isn’t a fan of those three teams is as much against the Patriots and Ravens as I am?

There will be plenty of time to talk about what this Sunday means, and yes, I will be calling on Coach Eric Taylor from Friday Night Lights again this week to help prepare for the 49ers. But there is still that win from this past Sunday against the “best” team in football that needs to be talked about, even if it was a blowout and even if it was only in the divisional round of the playoffs.

If the Giants end up finishing 2011 the way they finished 2007, then all the columns and books and special edition DVDs that will come from it will look at these three factors as important keys to another historical playoff run.

The Fumble/The Call/The Challenge
Have you ever muttered something to your girlfriend or to your mom out of anger and frustration that you didn’t mean and wish you could take it back? But fortunately for you they didn’t fully hear you or hope they heard you wrong and say, “What did you just say?” and you are given a second chance to review your initial remark and change it? You would have to be an idiot to have this chance to review your words and come back with the same answer. Well, unless you’re Ray Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond or NFL referee Bill Leavy.

I really don’t know how anyone could watch Greg Jennings fumble and think that it wasn’t a fumble. And I really don’t know how the guy whose job it is to watch this play in slow motion from every available angle can watch it and think it wasn’t a fumble. It’s hard for anyone to convince me that the officials in the game didn’t have heavy, heavy money on the Packers’ money line or that Roger Goodell wasn’t pacing in a dark room somewhere trying to figure out a way to get both Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady to championship weekend. I have yet to hear someone say they agree with Leavy’s decision and even though the NFL’s statement didn’t say that Leavy was wrong, it implied it.

Leavy’s call was an embarrassment. It was an embarrassment to him and to all officials and to the league as a whole. Luckily for him the Giants won the game and won it convincingly otherwise he would probably be spending a lot of his time on Monster.com and none of his time in the tri-state area.

I know I shouldn’t be mad about this play because the Giants won by 17 points, but they could have lost the game because of this call. So yeah, I’m mad. When it happened I was casually drinking for the game, but after the call stood, I took my alcohol intake from Wayne Gretzky points per game in ‘1998-99 to his points per game from ’85-86. I’m mad because if a call like that can happen in a game like that, why can’t it happen again this weekend or in the Super Bowl?

The argument that the Hail Mary (we’ll get to that) and the bad call negate each other is a silly one. The Hail Mary was a designed play of genius executed by an elite quarterback and a premier receiver. The bad call was a blown call by an incompetent official whose time under the hood and then announcement of “After review, the call on the field stands” should be used as a Lasik eye surgery infomercial at 4 a.m. on the YES Network. I just need to remind myself that the Giants won. The Giants won!

Packers Choice To Defer/Onside Kick/Go For It On Fourth Down
Mike McCarthy isn’t someone I would want sit at a blackjack table. I just picture him hitting on 12 against the dealer’s 2 on one hand and then staying on 12 against the dealer’s 2 on the following hand. Play with some consistency, Mike. If you’re going to do something one way, then stick with it. Did you not watch the Falcons’ Mike Smith change his thought process and decision making on short yardage situations last week?

The Packers had the worst pass defense in the history of the NFL. That’s right, the history of the NFL. That’s not a long time or anything. But you know what the Packers do have? Maybe the best quarterback on the planet who just came off the best regular season in the history of the NFL and masked the defensive inefficiencies of his team all season.

So … The Packers win the coin toss and elect to defer. That means McCarthy, instead of putting Rodgers on the field with a chance to take an early lead and quickly put a dent in the Giants’ confidence on the road against the No. 1 team, he puts his historically bad defense on the field. (At the time I didn’t think about it that much and was actually upset about the decision because I love getting the ball in the second half.)

But then just six seconds into the SECOND QUARTER after tying the game, McCarthy elects for an onside kick that the Giants recover at the Green Bay 41. Umm, OK? You just tied the game, 15:06 into the game, and now you’re trying an onside kick? McCarthy might as well have had the Lambeau big screen show a personal message from him saying, “Hey Tom, I don’t trust my defense! I trust them so little I’m going to try an onside kick in a tied playoff game and give your All-Pro quarterback a short field to play with!” But just 15 minutes of football before that, he decided to put his defense on the field over this offense? Well, what’s it going to be, Mike?

(Here’s the problem with an onside kick, which I’m not breaking any ground about. If you recover it you’re a genius like Sean Payton in the Super Bowl. If you don’t recover it you’re an idiot. It’s like swinging away on 3-0. You better drive the ball into the gap or over the fence because if you pop it up like Mark Teixeira then you better enjoy answering questions from the media.

But it doesn’t stop there. On fourth-and-5 from the Giants’ 39 with over 13 minutes left to play and the Packers trailing by seven points (not 17 or 27, just seven), McCarthy has his offense go for it (yet another “Eff you” move to his defense). Rodgers is sacked for a loss of six yards, the Giants take over at their own 45 and go down the field and kick a field goal to make it a two-possession game.

Mike McCarthy coached the game and made decisions like you would expect Andy Reid or Norv Turner to in a playoff game. And I can’t thank him enough for it.

Flood Tip
“WHAT THE EFF ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!?!” That’s what I screamed (along with spilling Coors Lights everywhere and throwing Tostitos at the TV like Chris Kattan as Mr. Peepers on Saturday Night Live) when the Giants went to the line and Eli Manning was out there and not Lawrence Tynes. (Sure, Lawrence Tynes is as inconsistent as McCarthy’s playcalling and already missed one field goal), but with four seconds left on the clock and no timeouts, you’re only going to be able to run one play, and that one play is a Hail Mary. What’s the success rate of for a Hail Mary? That’s not rhetorical. I’m actually wondering. What is it?

But the crazy thing about the play is that when Eli let the ball go and the FOX camera panned to it soaring through the air to the corner of the end zone, Hakeem Nicks looked like the only guy in the end zone. (For any of you that saw the Steve Bartman 30 for 30 documentary, Catching Hell, on ESPN, it looked like the part where they remove everything from the scene of the ball in the air except for Moises Alou to see if he would have caught it. Nicks looked like Alou the entire time). The Packers secondary was behind Nicks and poorly positioned to knock the ball down or slap it down or even intercept it. And of course Nicks catches it and pins it to his helmet and facemask to create yet another 2007 comparisons from the David Tyree catch. (FYI: The last time the Giants scored important points in a divisional playoff game was the last time they were in the divisional playoffs in Dallas. That year turned out pretty well too. I’m just saying…)

The Packers didn’t deserve to win. They turned the ball over four times* (five if Bill Leavy is even semi decent at his job). Aaron Rodgers played like Joe Flacco and Jermichael Finley played like the Patriots’ Reche Caldwell in 2006. Without Leavy and Goodell and an unbelievable camera angle on that fumbled kick return, a 37-20 game would have been more like 50-3. And there’s a very real chance that without a phantom roughing the passer penalty and Leavy’s incompetence, the Packers are held touchdown-less at home in a playoff game after going 15-1 in the regular season.

On my Amtrak ride back from Boston on Monday morning, I had the New York Post sitting on the seat next to me and somewhere on the trip in Rhode Island a guy came up to me and said, “Are you done with that Post?” I said, “Yeah, you can have it.” He replied, “I have to read about my Giants.” A few days ago no one thought any Giants fan would want to read about the Giants on the Monday after Green Bay. Now it’s about wanting to read about the Giants on the Monday after San Francisco.

Last Sunday feels like it was three years ago. And this Saturday feels like it’s four years from now. That’s how you know it’s the NFL playoffs.

The five days between playoff games for the first two rounds feel like forever. And there’s only so much hype and so many predictions and guarantees you can read about to fill the void left by five days without football. Thankfully for the 2011 playoffs we have the New York Jets.

Even though the Jets won’t play a game that counts for another 33 weeks, Rex Ryan’s team of mixed personalities is the talk of the town after yet another Super Bowl “guarantee” ended up being exactly what Chris Farley described it as when he made his first sale in Tommy Boy. And despite the New York Football Giants (the Kings of the City) playing in the divisional round this weekend against the defending champions (the Kings of the NFL), the focal point in New York has been on the Jets’ collapse and the aftermath from it.

In the last week we have found out that the Jets’ captain quit on the team, that it will be hard for anyone to believe anything Mike Tannenbaum says again and most recently that anonymous players on the Jets don’t want Mark Sanchez to be the starting quarterback in 2012. It’s too bad that those who like the Jets and those who like the Red Sox are from cities that hate each because they have so much in common and could be the best of friends. How much does the Jets’ January feel like the Red Sox’ September? A lot. And how much do I love every minute of it? A lot.

But let’s not forget that there is actual football to still be played. There’s real games where teams wear jerseys and play for championships, and don’t just send out press releases late at night to fire their offensive coordinator. And even though it’s fun to watch Jerry Jones try to come up with an apology he hasn’t used before for his Cowboys’ performance or to watch Rex Ryan and Mr. T (Hey, Mr. T is one smart S.O.B. for signing Santonio Holmes!) fumble for the right words to try and make any sort of a positive out of an 8-8 season, the focus should be around teams with games left on their schedule.

As for my picks, I was one win away from opening the playoffs with a perfect record in the wild-card week, but I put my faith in Andy Dalton and the Cincinnati Bengals. How did I let myself do this? I have a feeling I will be asking myself the same question next week when you find out who I picked in the 49ers-Saints game.

Divisional round … let’s go!

(Home team in caps)

SAN FRANCISCO +3.5 over New Orleans
The Saints are two very different teams. You have the New Orleans Saints and you have the Road Saints. The New Orleans Saints are undefeated in the regular season and the playoffs at 9-0 with an average of 41.6 points for and 19.0 points against. The Road Saints are 5-3 with an average of 27.3 points for and 24.5 points against (and losses to Tampa Bay and St. Louis).

This game is the trickiest of them all because most people are thinking about the matchup of Alex Smith vs. Drew Brees, which is about as equal of a matchup as Boone Logan vs. Josh Hamilton. Alex Smith might be the worst quarterback remaining in the field (a field that includes Joe Flacco and T.J. Yates) while Drew Brees might be the best quarterback remaining in the field (depending on who you ask and if the person you’re asking is from Green Bay or New England).

But the Road Saints in San Francisco where the field is slow and outdoors changes everything.

Denver +13.5 over NEW ENGLAND
If you have had the luxury of listening to Boston sports radio or reading anything to come out of Boston this week, then you have been able to feel the confidence oozing from Back Bay to Beacon Hill. New England sports fan believe there’s absolutely no chance that they will lose to the Broncos on Saturday night. No chance at all.

I remember one year ago this weekend when Patriots fans laughed at facing the Jets in the divisional round. My friend, Mike Hurley from NESN.com (I guess he’s a “friend”), wrote, “The Jets don’t have a chance.” I’m just glad things like this don’t disappear on the Internet.

There was also this time two years ago when the Patriots hosted the Ravens in the wild-card round and were expected to win. Then Tom Brady threw three picks (OK, there were some tip jobs) and lost a fumble and the Ravens scored 20 points off turnovers and sent Tom Brady home.

Patriots fans currently have “fake” confidence. I know what it feels like. I had it during the ALDS in 2005, 2006 and 2007, when the Yankees bowed out of the postseason after five games once and four games twice. I didn’t regain my confidence in the Yankees until they advanced to the ALCS in 2009, and prior to that it seemed like their most recent championship was the one in 1978 rather than the one in 2000.

And if the Patriots lose on Saturday night, their last three playoff losses will all have come in their first game of the postseason, at home and against Joe Flacco, Mark Sanchez and Tim Tebow. I’m not really sure how you sleep after that. It’s like losing an elimination game to Jeremy Bonderman or Paul Byrd. But trust me, eventually you get over it.

The Patriots have a chance to lose on Saturday. The same way they had a chance to lose to the Giants in Super Bowl XLII and the Ravens in the 2009 playoffs and the Jets (even though no one gave them a chance to lose).

The Last Night of the Patriots Dynasty started with Champ Bailey intercepting Tom Brady in the end zone in Denver on Jan. 14, 2006. Exactly six years later, the Patriots and Broncos meet again. If we’re lucky, Tim Tebow will be playing in the AFC Championship Game a week from Sunday and Tom Brady will be talking about the latest version of “the worst loss of his career.”

BALTIMORE -7.5 over Houston
This game is the only game in which I don’t think the underdog has a chance to win even though most would say it’s probably the best chance for an underdog to win. But I should know better than to say that a team doesn’t have a chance to win.

This game is all about running offenses and running defenses because Joe Flacco and T.J. Yates won’t be allowed to ruin the game the way you wouldn’t let you five-year-old mow the lawn. Sure, you might let them ride on the sit-down mower with you and pretend like they are steering and controlling the machine, but in reality you’re doing all the work to avoid a disaster.

I was going to take the Ravens even before I remembered that the Texans lost in Baltimore in Week 6 by 15 points (29-14), and that was with Matt Schaub! Now they return to Baltimore with T.J. Yates. Doesn’t 7.5 points feel like not enough?

New York Giants +7.5 over GREEN BAY
I don’t like the hype around the Giants right now. I don’t like it one bit. It’s growing with each day leading up to Sunday, and everyone I have talked with in the city feels confident about the Giants. And it doesn’t help that Jason Pierre-Paul is saying things like, “We’re going to win. One hundred percent we’re going to win … because we’re the best.”

I’m aware that the Giants are healthy for the first time, riding a three-game winning streak and getting hot and peaking at the right moment just like they did in the 2007 playoffs. I’m also aware that in a “Hey, We Can Get Our Backs Off From Up Against The Wall” game, the Giants were embarrassed at home by the Redskins. And that was just four weeks ago.

I don’t expect the Giants to win on Sunday (more on this tomorrow on WFAN.com with some help from Friday Night Lights). I want them to, but I don’t know if they can or will. I know that the Giants are the last team the Packers wanted to face in their first postseason, but I don’t know if it will matter. I just wanted the Giants to have a chance to get to this game; to extend the season as long as possible and to finally realize their potential and play to their ability; to get back to Green Bay like the third Sunday of January in 2008 and once again shock the world. So far they have given us most of that these last three weeks. Now, about the “shock the world” part…

Last Week: 3-1
Regular Season: 118-129-12

I wanted to do my own “Shiva Blast” after the Giants finished off the Cowboys and clinched a playoff berth on Sunday night. But since I don’t have anything as catchy as “Shivakamini Somakandarkram,” I just went with a “Woooooooooooo!” and a combination of a Joba Chamberlain 360-fist pump mixed with a Francisco Cervelli “Mariano just closed out the game” standing fist pump mixed with Artem Anisimov’s “sniper” celebration. Some people would call it a “seizure.” I call it “the Giants making the playoffs for the first time in three years.”

This Giants season wasn’t easy. Actually, it was insanely difficult. To think that 17 weeks ago when the Giants lost to Rex Grossman and the Redskins (a children’s book title, perhaps?) I assumed the season was over. The Giants were too banged up to recover from a preseason that took down their defense, and the opening week loss verified it. But then the Giants bounced back with six wins in their next seven games (their lone loss to Charvaris Whiteson). Then they entered The Gauntlet and beat Tom Brady, only to lose to Alex Smith and Vince Young before getting blown out by Drew Brees and daggered by Aaron Rodgers.

This season had everything Giants fans have come to expect from their team, and why I constantly refer to Matt Damon’s character Mike McDermott’s explanation of No-Limit ‘Hold Em in Rounders as the perfect description of what Giants fans endure.

“There’s no other game in which fortunes can change so much from hand to hand. A brilliant player can get a strong hand cracked, go on tilt … and lose his mind along with every single chip in front of him … Some people, pros even, won’t play No-Limit. They can’t handle the swings.”

2011 was a 17-week roller-coaster ride filled with lots of highs, plenty of lows, daggers for and against, questionable playcalling and a lot of heartache. If every cigarette supposedly takes 11 minutes off a person’s life, then the 2011 Giants season was enough to force people to stock up on bottled waters and canned foods and batteries in anticipation of the end of the world. But the season ended gloriously with the Giants directly eliminating the Cowboys and Jets and indirectly eliminating the Eagles. So, despite an inconsistent and lackluster 9-7 season and the Giants becoming the first team to ever win the NFC East with only nine wins, I can still send my Jets friends emails with “J! E! T! S!” as the subject and “JETS! JETS! JETS!” as the body until at least Sunday. And aside from having your teams win championships, isn’t that what sports are all about?

The Giants are playing with house money from here on out and I believe Tom Coughlin is too. Some people believe he has to win a playoff game to return next season (he is under contract for next season), but I think he cemented his return when he disarmed the second-half collapse bomb with one second left on the timer by clinching a playoff berth with three wins in the final four games.

Does “playing with house money,” mean I won’t be upset if the Giants lose on Sunday at home to the Falcons? Of course not. I will be the first one to tell Kevin Gilbride to “Get the eff out!” Ari Gold style or ask why Aaron Ross isn’t playing in an arena league or wonder if Deon Grant is the Creed Bratton of the Giants. It just means I got my wish. That wish was when I told Ralph Vacchiano of the New York Daily News in our season preview the following.

I will take any playoff berth in any possible way. Give me the No. 6 seed and a path to the Super Bowl built around road games. I don’t care. I just want to watch the playoffs with the Giants in it, and I’m not sure if I can emotionally and physically take another collapse that forces the “Should Tom Coughlin be fired?” discussion for weeks after the season.

So, I really can’t complain no matter what happens on Sunday. But if things start to go south, I will definitely be complaining.

As for my picks, let’s say we just forget about this season the way I forgot about the 2004 and the 2008 MLB seasons. OK? OK, good.

My regular season picks were a disaster, but you don’t need me to tell you that if you read my picks for 17 weeks (or if you scrolled to the bottom of this page to see my record). So, I’m not going to tell you that because I’m not Mike Tannenbaum who told Mike Francesa on Wednesday that he “will be the first one to tell you that the Jets didn’t get the job done.” Gee, thanks, Mr. T! I’m glad you will be the first to tell Jets fans what they watched happened. Until you told Francesa that, all Jets fans probably thought their team had a playoff game this weekend. So, thanks for the heads-up!

Luckily, we have four weeks of playoff football and 11 games for me to salvage the season and finish strong and gain some confidence for the 2012 season. (Eagles fans know what I’m talking about.) If everything goes according to plan, I will be using this space next week to pick a Giants-Packers game. And if nothing goes according to plan, I will be dreading the Broncos or Bengals acting as a red carpet for the Patriots to the AFC Championship.

Wild-Card Week … let’s go!

(Home team in caps)

Cincinnati -3 over HOUSTON
If you’re introducing someone to the NFL and the NFL playoffs for the first time this weekend, this isn’t the game you want to show them. Texans-Bengals? Playoffs? Is this real life?

According to Adam Schefter, Andy Dalton spent Wednesday night by the sink and the toilet, but he is expected to practice today. Do I really want to pick the team led by rookie quarterback that has spent the week leading up to the game hugging the toilet like Sack in Wedding Crashers?

So, do you take your chances with the team that has a rookie quarterback that is good, but might not be at full strength for the game, or do you take your chances with the team that has a rookie quarterback who injured his shoulder in Week 17 and if he doesn’t start, his backup is … wait for it … wait for it … wait for it … keep waiting … Jake Delhomme! Yes, THE Jake Delhomme!

I’ll take my chances with the points.

NEW ORLEANS -10.5 over Detroit
If you think 10.5 points is too many for the playoffs, send me your address and I will send you the game tapes from the Saints’ home games this season. But in the meantime, here are the point totals for the Saints at the Superdome where they were undefeated: 30, 40, 62, 27, 49, 31, 45, and 45. (Wait, they only scored 27 points in a home a game? What a bunch of losers!) And here are their win differentials at home: 17, 7, 55, 11, 25, 14, 29, and 28. So, one time all season they didn’t cover a 10.5-point spread at home and that was in Week 3 against the then-undefeated Matt Schaub Texans.

I think that the Saints are the best team in football … when they play at home, which is obvious. The only way they don’t’ go to the Super Bowl is if they have to go to Lambeau Field during the postseason because the Saints are nowhere near the team on the road that they are in New Orleans.

(Also, if the Giants end up playing the Saints in the NFC Championship Game (BIG “if” here), they might as well not even make the trip.)

NEW YORK GIANTS -3 over Atlanta
It seems like aside from Falcons fans (I don’t really know any) and Falcons blogs (I checked out a few on Wednesday), no one is really picking the Falcons to win this game. This means the tri-state area should be on high alert for a Giants letdown on Sunday. I’m taking about a code red, emergency broadcast system alert, air-raid siren type of letdown. The last thing the Giants need is people believing in them and the element of hype on their side.

The Giants are fine when they are left alone and forgotten about. That’s why 2007 worked out the way it did. They were the 10-6 team as a No. 6 seed with road games in Tampa Bay, Dallas and Green Bay on their path to the Super Bowl. No one gave them a chance any of those weeks and no one gave them a chance when they made it Arizona. (I will always remember Frank Caliendo being the only member of the FOX pregame show to pick the Giants to win Super Bowl XLII.)

Normally I would be hoping for the Giants to be a lower seed here and playing on the road, but they are playing a sub-par road team in Atlanta at MetLife and if they were any lower seeded, they would be playing on the road in either Atlanta and New Orleans and would be 100 percent be home on Monday for the offseason like the other team in the city.

But really, who did you think I was going to pick in this game?

DENVER +9 over Pittsburgh
For the first time I am getting off the Tim Tebow train. Well, I’m more like rolling out of it while it’s still moving like Steve Carell in Crazy, Stupid, Love., but I’m getting off of it. It’s not because of anything Tim Tebow did or didn’t do. It’s because of the Steelers in the playoffs. But I’m not about to take the Steelers to cover more than a touchdown since that hasn’t really worked out for me too well this year, and Ben Roethlisberger is going to be moving around the pocket like Chien-Ming Wang rounding third base in Houston in 2008.

Because the Giants weren’t in the playoffs last year, I had to resort to picking a team to root for, and instead it became “Who Should I Root Against?” in a column titled “My Super Bowl Dilemma.” That’s right, I wrote a whole column on which teams I didn’t want to win the Super Bowl. This year, I don’t have that problem since the Giants are still alive and the Eagles, Cowboys and Jets are on their fourth day of the offseason. But one team is still alive that I want eliminated as soon as possible. Any guess as to which team that might be? Here’s a hint: in 15 days it will be four year since they last won a playoff game.

I want the Patriots out of the playoffs, but I’m not wishing for them to lose because I’m not about to waste a wish on something that will probably happen without me wishing for it. The best way for this happen though is if the Texans and Steelers both win. That will send the Steelers to New England and the Texans to Baltimore. But if the Bengals win, they automatically go to New England and the Patriots will have their way with either Cincinnati or Denver.

So, because of all this, I will be a Steelers fan on Sunday (to win, but not cover, of course). And if the Bengals lose on Saturday and all we need is a Steelers win to make it so the Patriots have a legitimate opponent in the divisional round, I might go out and buy a Ben Roethlisberger shirt even if I get more dirty looks in the city than John Rocker did in 2000.

Last Week: 8-7-1
Regular Season: 118-129-12

I wanted to do my own “Shiva Blast” after the Giants finished off the Cowboys and clinched a playoff berth on Sunday night. But since I don’t have anything as catchy as “Shivakamini Somakandarkram,” I just went with a “Woooooooooooo!” and a combination of a Joba Chamberlain 360-fist pump mixed with a Francisco Cervelli “Mariano just closed out the game” standing fist pump mixed with Artem Anisimov’s “sniper” celebration. Some people would call it a “seizure.” I call it “the Giants making the playoffs for the first time in three years.”

This Giants season wasn’t easy. Actually, it was insanely difficult. To think that 17 weeks ago when the Giants lost to Rex Grossman and the Redskins (a children’s book title, perhaps?) I assumed the season was over. The Giants were too banged up to recover from a preseason that took down their defense, and the opening week loss verified it. But then the Giants bounced back with six wins in their next seven games (their lone loss to Charvaris Whiteson). Then they entered The Gauntlet and beat Tom Brady, only to lose to Alex Smith and Vince Young before getting blown out by Drew Brees and daggered by Aaron Rodgers.

This season had everything Giants fans have come to expect from their team, and why I constantly refer to Matt Damon’s character Mike McDermott’s explanation of No-Limit ‘Hold Em in Rounders as the perfect description of what Giants fans endure.

“There’s no other game in which fortunes can change so much from hand to hand. A brilliant player can get a strong hand cracked, go on tilt … and lose his mind along with every single chip in front of him … Some people, pros even, won’t play No-Limit. They can’t handle the swings.”

2011 was a 17-week roller-coaster ride filled with lots of highs, plenty of lows, daggers for and against, questionable playcalling and a lot of heartache. If every cigarette supposedly takes 11 minutes off a person’s life, then the 2011 Giants season was enough to force people to stock up on bottled waters and canned foods and batteries in anticipation of the end of the world. But the season ended gloriously with the Giants directly eliminating the Cowboys and Jets and indirectly eliminating the Eagles. So, despite an inconsistent and lackluster 9-7 season and the Giants becoming the first team to ever win the NFC East with only nine wins, I can still send my Jets friends emails with “J! E! T! S!” as the subject and “JETS! JETS! JETS!” as the body until at least Sunday. And aside from having your teams win championships, isn’t that what sports are all about?

The Giants are playing with house money from here on out and I believe Tom Coughlin is too. Some people believe he has to win a playoff game to return next season (he is under contract for next season), but I think he cemented his return when he disarmed the second-half collapse bomb with one second left on the timer by clinching a playoff berth with three wins in the final four games.

Does “playing with house money,” mean I won’t be upset if the Giants lose on Sunday at home to the Falcons? Of course not. I will be the first one to tell Kevin Gilbride to “Get the eff out!” Ari Gold style or ask why Aaron Ross isn’t playing in an arena league or wonder if Deon Grant is the Creed Bratton of the Giants. It just means I got my wish. That wish was when I told Ralph Vacchiano of the New York Daily News in our season preview the following.

I will take any playoff berth in any possible way. Give me the No. 6 seed and a path to the Super Bowl built around road games. I don’t care. I just want to watch the playoffs with the Giants in it, and I’m not sure if I can emotionally and physically take another collapse that forces the “Should Tom Coughlin be fired?” discussion for weeks after the season.

So, I really can’t complain no matter what happens on Sunday. But if things start to go south, I will definitely be complaining.

As for my picks, let’s say we just forget about this season the way I forgot about the 2004 and the 2008 MLB seasons. OK? OK, good.

My regular season picks were a disaster, but you don’t need me to tell you that if you read my picks for 17 weeks (or if you scrolled to the bottom of this page to see my record). So, I’m not going to tell you that because I’m not Mike Tannenbaum who told Mike Francesa on Wednesday that he “will be the first one to tell you that the Jets didn’t get the job done.” Gee, thanks, Mr. T! I’m glad you will be the first to tell Jets fans what they watched happened. Until you told Francesa that, all Jets fans probably thought their team had a playoff game this weekend. So, thanks for the heads-up!

Luckily, we have four weeks of playoff football and 11 games for me to salvage the season and finish strong and gain some confidence for the 2012 season. (Eagles fans know what I’m talking about.) If everything goes according to plan, I will be using this space next week to pick a Giants-Packers game. And if nothing goes according to plan, I will be dreading the Broncos or Bengals acting as a red carpet for the Patriots to the AFC Championship.

Wild-Card Week … let’s go!

(Home team in caps)

Cincinnati -3 over HOUSTON
If you’re introducing someone to the NFL and the NFL playoffs for the first time this weekend, this isn’t the game you want to show them. Texans-Bengals? Playoffs? Is this real life?

According to Adam Schefter, Andy Dalton spent Wednesday night by the sink and the toilet, but he is expected to practice today. Do I really want to pick the team led by rookie quarterback that has spent the week leading up to the game hugging the toilet like Sack in Wedding Crashers?

So, do you take your chances with the team that has a rookie quarterback that is good, but might not be at full strength for the game, or do you take your chances with the team that has a rookie quarterback who injured his shoulder in Week 17 and if he doesn’t start, his backup is … wait for it … wait for it … wait for it … keep waiting … Jake Delhomme! Yes, THE Jake Delhomme!

I’ll take my chances with the points.

NEW ORLEANS -10.5 over Detroit
If you think 10.5 points is too many for the playoffs, send me your address and I will send you the game tapes from the Saints’ home games this season. But in the meantime, here are the point totals for the Saints at the Superdome where they were undefeated: 30, 40, 62, 27, 49, 31, 45, and 45. (Wait, they only scored 27 points in a home a game? What a bunch of losers!) And here are their win differentials at home: 17, 7, 55, 11, 25, 14, 29, and 28. So, one time all season they didn’t cover a 10.5-point spread at home and that was in Week 3 against the then-undefeated Matt Schaub Texans.

I think that the Saints are the best team in football … when they play at home, which is obvious. The only way they don’t’ go to the Super Bowl is if they have to go to Lambeau Field during the postseason because the Saints are nowhere near the team on the road that they are in New Orleans.

(Also, if the Giants end up playing the Saints in the NFC Championship Game (BIG “if” here), they might as well not even make the trip.)

NEW YORK GIANTS -3 over Atlanta
It seems like aside from Falcons fans (I don’t really know any) and Falcons blogs (I checked out a few on Wednesday), no one is really picking the Falcons to win this game. This means the tri-state area should be on high alert for a Giants letdown on Sunday. I’m taking about a code red, emergency broadcast system alert, air-raid siren type of letdown. The last thing the Giants need is people believing in them and the element of hype on their side.

The Giants are fine when they are left alone and forgotten about. That’s why 2007 worked out the way it did. They were the 10-6 team as a No. 6 seed with road games in Tampa Bay, Dallas and Green Bay on their path to the Super Bowl. No one gave them a chance any of those weeks and no one gave them a chance when they made it Arizona. (I will always remember Frank Caliendo being the only member of the FOX pregame show to pick the Giants to win Super Bowl XLII.)

Normally I would be hoping for the Giants to be a lower seed here and playing on the road, but they are playing a sub-par road team in Atlanta at MetLife and if they were any lower seeded, they would be playing on the road in either Atlanta and New Orleans and would be 100 percent be home on Monday for the offseason like the other team in the city.

But really, who did you think I was going to pick in this game?

DENVER +9 over Pittsburgh
For the first time I am getting off the Tim Tebow train. Well, I’m more like rolling out of it while it’s still moving like Steve Carell in Crazy, Stupid, Love., but I’m getting off of it. It’s not because of anything Tim Tebow did or didn’t do. It’s because of the Steelers in the playoffs. But I’m not about to take the Steelers to cover more than a touchdown since that hasn’t really worked out for me too well this year, and Ben Roethlisberger is going to be moving around the pocket like Chien-Ming Wang rounding third base in Houston in 2008.

Because the Giants weren’t in the playoffs last year, I had to resort to picking a team to root for, and instead it became “Who Should I Root Against?” in a column titled “My Super Bowl Dilemma.” That’s right, I wrote a whole column on which teams I didn’t want to win the Super Bowl. This year, I don’t have that problem since the Giants are still alive and the Eagles, Cowboys and Jets are on their fourth day of the offseason. But one team is still alive that I want eliminated as soon as possible. Any guess as to which team that might be? Here’s a hint: in 15 days it will be four year since they last won a playoff game.

I want the Patriots out of the playoffs, but I’m not wishing for them to lose because I’m not about to waste a wish on something that will probably happen without me wishing for it. The best way for this happen though is if the Texans and Steelers both win. That will send the Steelers to New England and the Texans to Baltimore. But if the Bengals win, they automatically go to New England and the Patriots will have their way with either Cincinnati or Denver.

So, because of all this, I will be a Steelers fan on Sunday (to win, but not cover, of course). And if the Bengals lose on Saturday and all we need is a Steelers win to make it so the Patriots have a legitimate opponent in the divisional round, I might go out and buy a Ben Roethlisberger shirt even if I get more dirty looks in the city than John Rocker did in 2000.

Last Week: 8-7-1
Regular Season: 118-129-12

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.”