Someone will win Super Bowl LIII, but it won’t be the Giants. Unfortunately, this column is becoming an annual thing because of the Giants’ inability to reach the postseason.

Normally, there’s at least one team I can pull for in the playoffs even if they have little-to-no-chance of actually winning the Super Bowl though this season there’s really no team I want to see win. But someone has to win.

Here’s the list of playoff teams in order of who I want to see win the Super Bowl to who I don’t want to see win the Super Bowl.

1. Bears
The idea of Mitch Trubisky winning a Super Bowl is outrageous and it’s even more outrageous when you think about the possibility of him winning the Super Bowl in his first full season as a starting quarterback. I like the Bears because I like watching good defense in a league that has done everything it can to limit playing defense aside from actual forcing teams to play with less players on defense than offense. If the Bears had earned one of the two byes in the NFC, I would feel a lot better about their chances in the frigid Chicago winter. But the Bears will most likely play only one home game in the postseason and that home game will come against the Eagles, who don’t mind playing in winter conditions either.

2. Texans
The Texans aren’t going to win the Super Bowl, so why not put them near the top of the list? Sure, they could beat the Colts at home this weekend, but even if they do, does anyone really think they are going to get over their postseason hump and knock off either the Chiefs or Patriots on the road? The Texans had an incredible season, winning 11 of their last 13 games after starting the season 0-3, but they are certainly going to fall short in the playoffs the way they always do.

3. Rams
The Rams winning the Super Bowl would be good for football in Los Angeles, especially in anticipation of their new stadium opening in a couple seasons. But if the Rams won the Super Bowl, would anyone in Los Angeles even care? The history of this version of the Los Angeles Rams needs to start somewhere though it seems too early and would feel wrong if they won this early in their return to the West Coast. Plus, I don’t think Jared Goff is ready to lead a team to the Super Bowl, let alone win it.

4. Colts
I don’t want Andrew Luck to win a Super Bowl, but this playoff field is making it easier and easier to root for him. There are too many worse options out there that I now find myself in a situation where I could be rooting for Luck in the divisional round to upset the Chiefs or Patriots. My rooting for Luck, however, won’t be enough for him to win a game in either road venue, if he can even get his team through Houston this weekend.

5. Ravens
I don’t like the Ravens, plain and simple. Like the Colts, the Ravens are in the top half of my list of teams to root for because of how disgusting the rest of the teams are. The only thing that really kept the Ravens from dropping on this list is the enjoyment of watching Lamar Jackson.

6. Chiefs
Let’s say the Chiefs keep their home-field advantage and reach the AFC Championship Game. I have no doubt they will be playing the Patriots in that game. So far, this Chiefs team has proved that they are incapable of winning the big game, as they lost every important game during the regular season after blowing a 21-point lead at home in the playoffs last year. I would certainly root heavily for the Chiefs to win the AFC Championship over the Patriots, but we all know that’s not going to happen.

7. Saints
I will be rooting for the Saints on Super Bowl Sunday when they play the Patriots in Atlanta. I don’t want to root for Drew Brees to win another championship after he single-handedly depleted my bank account over the last few weeks (mainly in Dallas), but I’m going to have to. The Superdome Saints aren’t going to lose in the NFC playoffs and then it’s off to Atlanta, another dome for the Saints to hopefully prevent the Patriots from winning another championship.

8. Eagles
I never thought I would root for the Eagles, let alone with a Super Bowl on the line, but playing the Patriots will do that. While I am a fan of Nick Foles and the story that would come along with him leading the Eagles to a second straight Super Bowl and the quarterback controversy that would ensue if Carson Wentz was on the sideline again while Foles won back-to-back Super Bowls, one championship is enough for the Eagles and their fans.

9. Chargers
I should never have to defend Eli Manning as a two-time Super Bowl MVP who has missed one start over 15 seasons and only missed the one start because of the nonsensical decision from Ben McAdoo and Jerry Reese, which cost both men their jobs, but I constantly find myself in arguments trying to show support for Number 10 against those who think the Giants should have kept Philip Rivers in the 2004 draft.

Rivers has been an incredible regular-season quarterback and fantasy football quarterback who has always faltered in the postseason, and that alone has served as the Manning-Rivers debate trump card. If Rivers were to finally win a championship, it would put a dent into that trump card, even though it really shouldn’t.

I’m really not worried about the Chargers going on any sort of the run. A cross-country flight to the Eastern Time Zone where they always play poorly is enough to realize even if the Chargers get past the Ravens this week, they aren’t going to win three straight road games to get to the Super Bowl. That’s something Eli Manning would do and has done and Philip Rivers isn’t Eli Manning.

10. Seahawks
After Pete Carroll’s goal-line decision in the Super Bowl, I promised myself I would never root for the Seahawks again unless they were playing the Patriots in the Super Bowl again. The last thing I want to see is Carroll and Russell Wilson hoisting the Lombardi Trophy to ease the pain of their performance four years ago and talking about what they had to overcome to become champions again. I need the goal-line disaster to be their lasting Super Bowl memory after ending the Patriots’ nine-year championship drought.

11. Cowboys
The Cowboys and Eagles used to both fit nicely at the bottom of the list, but after the Eagles won last year (a game in which I painfully rooted for them), it is now easier to accept the Eagles winning their first Super Bowl. I can’t stomach the idea of Jason Garrett as a Super Bowl-winning coach and it’s not something I ever want to experience. There’s only one instance in which I would root for the Cowboys to win the Super Bowl, and that’s if they’re playing the last team on the list.

12. Patriots
My hatred for the Patriots forced me to root for the Giants’ No. 1 rival in the Eagles last Super Bowl. If I’m willing to root for the Eagles against the Patriots, I’m willing to root for anyone against the Patriots in the Super Bowl.

I’m looking forward to football this Sunday because there’s no way the Giants can ruin it. They can’t put me in a bad mood or lose me any money. Life without the Giants is very appealing and after the last 25 Giants games, I’m beginning to think my life would be much better without the Giants in it period.

Detroit +6 over MINNESOTA
I’m an honorary Vikings fan for the rest of the season, just like I was last season. Brittni is a Vikings fan, so I’m forced to pull for them to some degree, and with the Giants playing for the No. 1 pick in 2019, it gives me something to care about.

The problem is Kirk Cousins is the Vikings quarterback and he sucks. He really, truly sucks. The best thing to ever happen to the Jets was that Cousins turned down their offer to sign with them and the Vikings gave him $95 million to possibly destroy their window of opportunity. The Vikings would be no different with Case Keenum still their quarterback, and I honestly think they would be better with him. They wouldn’t have had Cousins to single-handedly lose the Bills game and they wouldn’t have had him to give away the Saints game.

I knew Cousins sucked when in Week 17 in 2017, he had the ball with a chance to lead his team down the field against a Giants team that had already clinched and had nothing to play for and he was unable to. Right then, I knew that Cousins would never be anything more than an average quarterback, who will never win anything. So while I’m rooting for the Vikings to win the Super Bowl for Brittni, I know they have no chance with Cousins.

Pittsburgh +3 over BALTIMORE
I will never not take the points when these two teams meet in this era of their rivalry.

WASHINGTON -1.5 over Atlanta
A battle of two teams the Giants could have beat and didn’t. Neither team is very good, but I will never trust the Falcons in any game as long as Dan Quinn is their head coach. I would rather pick against him them and be wrong than pick for them and have Quinn call Julio Jones off the field in the red zone.

Tampa Bay +6 over CAROLINA
This pick is mostly about me wanting Ryan Fitzpatrick to completely take Jameis Winston’s job from him than it is me believing Fitzpatrick won’t go out and throw three first-half interceptions. Then again, if there’s any team I wouldn’t want to give six points with it’s the Panthers and their sporadic offense. Taking the points just makes the most sense here.

Kansas City -9 over CLEVELAND
I never understood how the Red Sox could watch Bobby Valentine on Sunday Night Baseball every week and decided to hire him as their manager. And I never understood how Browns ownership could watch Hard Knocks this season and not fire Hue Jackson and Todd Haley before the season even began.

Forget Jackson’s record with the Browns, which will stand for all of time because no organization will let a coach lose 15 games and then all 16 games and bring him back yet again. If you watched Jackson interact with his team and his coaching staff, you knew the Browns would never stop being the Browns with him as head coach. And if you watched Haley for five minutes on that show, you would question how he ever got a job in the NFL, let alone continue to get jobs in the NFL running offenses.

So now Baker Mayfield has been exposed to the real Browns in his second month in the league as they have fired the coach halfway through his rookie season. Normally, organizations pair a head coach with a young quarterback, but not the Browns. They retain the worst coach record-wise in NFL history and pair him with the No. 1 overall pick and then fire the head coach and name the most insane person to hold a coaching job in the league as their interim head coach. A person who was suspended for an entire season. I’m sure Mayfield enjoyed being the No. 1 pick, but he would have been better off falling in the first round.

MIAMI -3 over New York Jets
First, the Jets were going to use this season for Sam Darnold to gain experience, according to Jets fans. Then after their Week 1 win, they were maybe a wild-card team. Then after three straight losses, it was back to gaining experience. Then after beating the Broncos, it was back to the playoffs. Then after beating the Colts, it was possibly a division title. Then after losing to the Vikings and Bears, it was back to gaining experience.

This season was never about anything other than Darnold getting a full season under his belt so the front office could go out next spring and dominate the free-agent market with all of their cap space. Jets fans had their moments where they thought their team could sneak into the playoffs, but I’m glad they have come back to reality.

Chicago -10 over BUFFALO
It doesn’t matter if it’s Josh Allen or Nathan Peterman or Derek Anderson starting for the Bills, there’s no way I can justify backing them at any number. When you have thrown three touchdown passes in half a season in this version of the NFL where quarterbacks regularly throw four-plus touchdowns a game, there’s no line that would scare me off from going against the Bills.

Los Angeles Chargers 0 over SEATTLE
One day I will write about the Chargers and not have to delete “San Diego” and type “Los Angeles”. I don’t know when that day will be, but it will happen. It hasn’t happened yet for me and the Phoenix Arizona Coyotes either, but the same way I overcame the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, I will overcome this.

Houston 0 over DENVER
The Texans were supposed to be finished after the Giants beat them and the Giants were supposed to go on a run. Instead, since their Week 3 game, the Texans have gone 5-0 and the Giants have gone 0-5. The Texans are now in first place in the AFC South with Super Bowl aspirations in a week conference and the Giants are in last place in the NFC East with first overall pick aspirations in the 2019 draft. I didn’t see this coming.

NEW ORLEANS -2 over Los Angeles Rams
The Rams are the last undefeated team in the NFL, but they have been close to getting picked off for their first loss several times lately, and had Ty Montgomery stayed in the end zone last week, they might have lost to the Packers. The Saints are coming off an impressive win in Minnesota, which was their sixth straight this season, and the Superdome seems like an inevitable setting for the Rams to take their first L.

Green Bay +6 over NEW ENGLAND
The Packers went to the West Coast and came within an idiotic return of potentially knocking off the 8-0 Rams. Now they are getting six points on road against a lesser opponent? Am I missing something here? I realize it’s the Patriots and I realize the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick history and record at home, but this is still Aaron Rodgers. This isn’t Andrew Luck or the Dolphins we’re talking. This line seems way too high.

Tennessee +5 over DALLAS
Since the Giants have nothing to play for, there are very few things left for me to care about this football season. One of those things is the demise of the Cowboys under Jason Garrett. The Cowboys traded a first-round pick of Amari Cooper and nothing would make me happier than for Cooper to continue to be the bust he has always been. I desperately need this move to backfire and for the Cowboys to continue to be the poster team for mediocrity in the NFL.

Last week: 7-7-0
Season: 49-56-1

Pete Carroll should be fired. That’s not me pulling a Bob Kravitz saying Robert Kraft should fire Bill Belichick because the Patriots’ footballs in the AFC Championship Game may or may not have been purposely deflated. That’s me saying the head coach of the Super Bowl XLVIII champion Seahawks and the head coach of the 2014 NFC Championship Seahawks, whose team was one yard away from being the first repeat champions in 10 years should be fired for exactly that: having his team one yard from being champions and blowing it.

“Blowing it” isn’t even the right term for Carroll did. Bill Buckner “blew” the play on the grounder in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Scott Norwood “blew” the kick in Super Bowl XXV. Trey Junkin “blew” the snap for the Giants against the 49ers in the 2002 playoffs. A lot of Packers “blew” the final minutes of the NFC Championship Game. Pete Carroll didn’t “blow” Super Bowl XLIX. He chose not to win it.

Of course Pete Carroll isn’t going to be fired. But he should be. He single-handedly cost the Seahawks a second straight championship, and if anyone can afford to eat a few million dollars, it’s Paul Allen.

It’s Pete Carroll’s fault that the Patriots’ won their fourth championship. It’s Pete Carroll’s fault that Tom Brady has as many Super Bowl wins as Joe Montana and people honestly think Tom Brady is the best quarterback ever now. It’s Pete Carroll’s fault that Darrelle Revis is now Wade Boggs. It’s Pete Carroll’s fault that the Patriots’ drought is over. It’s Pete Carroll’s fault that the Seahawks didn’t cover and my picks for the season finished one game under .500.

Here are all the reasons why Pete Carroll should have ran the ball on second-and-goal from the 1:

1. Marshawn Lynch just carried the ball four yards on first-and-goal from the 5. He had 102 yards on 24 carries, for an average of 4.3 yards per carry. He is Marshawn Lynch. He is the best running back in the world.

That’s it. One thing. That’s all that should have gone into deciding what play to run from the 1 with 20 seconds left. And if Lynch were stopped on second down from the 1, the Seahawks still had one timeout remaining and could have used it to guarantee themselves at least one more chance for Lynch to gain one yard, or three feet, or 36 inches or 91.44 centimeters. That’s what separated the Seahawks from a second straight Super Bowl with the best running back in the world as their way to get there.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to accept Pete Carroll’s thought process for the call, but let’s look at his explanation to try and understand it.

“Let me just tell you what happened because, as you know, the game comes right down and all the things that happened before are meaningless to you now. It’s really what happened on this one sequence that we would have won the game.

“We have everything in mind, how we’re going to do it. We’re going to leave them no time, and we had our plays to do it. We sent in our personnel, they sent in goal-line (package) — it’s not the right matchup for us to run the football — so on second down we throw the ball really to kind of waste a play.

It’s not the right matchup? Let me say it again: Marshawn Lynch just carried the ball four yards on first-and-goal from the 5. He had 102 yards on 24 carries, for an average of 4.3 yards per carry. He is Marshawn Lynch. He is the best running back in the world.

If anything, it wasn’t the right matchup for the Patriots. Because the Seahawks at the goal line aren’t the right matchup for any team because they have MARSHAWN LYNCH. MARSHAWN LYNCH!

“If we score, we do. If we don’t, then we’ll run it in on third and fourth down.”

What the eff? Is that a real-life quote? So, you’re willing to run the ball on either third and fourth down against … wait for it … wait for it … wait for it … THE PATRIOTS’ GOAL-LINE DEFENSE, but you’re unwilling to run the ball against the PATRIOTS’ GOAL-LINE DEFENSE on second down? How does that make any sense? Do you think the Patriots are going to change their defense on third or fourth down from the 1? Are they going to get out of their goal-line defense at the goal line? Why are third and fourth down different from second down in this situation?

You have to love the explanation not including the whole possibility of an interception, which could happen any time the ball is thrown in the air.

“Really, (we called it) with no second thoughts or no hesitation at all. And unfortunately, with the play that we tried to execute, the guy (Butler) makes a great play and jumps in front of the route and makes an incredible play that nobody would ever think he could do. And unfortunately that changes the whole outcome.”

No second thoughts? No hesitation? The thought “Hey, we have the best running back in the world on our team and he needs to get one yard for us to win the Super Bowl” never came into your mind? The thought “The ball could get tipped at the line or deflected by someone or intercepted” never entered your head? Oh, OK.

Malcolm Butler did make a great play and it was his play that won the Patriots the Super Bowl. But Carroll should in no way be congratulating Butler or talking about how incredible of a play it was because the play was only made possible by his decision to not run the ball.

“So I told the guys in the locker room that they’re a great team and they fought to prove that, and they did everything to do that again tonight. And they’re on the precipice of winning another championship, and unfortunately, the play goes the other way. There’s really nobody to blame but me, and I told them that clearly. And I don’t want them to think anything other than that. They busted their tails and did everything they needed to do to put us in position, and unfortunately it didn’t work out. A very, very hard lesson. I hate to learn the hard way, but there’s no other way to look at it right now.”

There’s nothing like when a professional athlete or coach accepts or takes the blame or responsibility for something went wrong and then every mainstream media member or beat writer nerd calls them a class act or refers to them as a stand-up guy. Carroll should take the full blame for the Seahawks losing the Super Bowl and for handing the Patriots their fourth championship in 14 years.

And there’s no silver lining in Carroll’s decision. “Learning the hard way” isn’t a good lesson or the moral of the story. It’s a ridiculous line from a person who made the most ridiculous decision in sports history.

“Really the way the route generally works is the back receiver gets shielded off so that the play can get thrown to the guy trailing. And it’s worked really well, it’s been a nice concept, but they jumped it — did a fantastic job. I don’t know if they prepared to do that or he did it on his own, but it was a great play.”

It was a great play by Butler, only made possible by Carroll’s play call. And it was Carroll’s play call. Even if Bevell suggested the play or was the one to relay the play to Wilson, Carroll is the head coach and has the final say on any call and absolute power to veto any decision made by his coordinators.

If Lynch fails to get in the end zone on second or on third down or fourth down and never gets in the end zone or if he fumbles the ball and loses it on any of those plays, so be it. Then you can talk about the Patriots making a great play and then you can tip your hat to their effort. If you lose with your best player trying to do what he does best, so be it. Don’t lose the Super Bowl because you run a passing play to Ricardo Lockette, a receiver with 18 career regular-season receptions, at the 1-yard line. Lose because the best running back in the world couldn’t get one yard.