I was so looking forward to rooting against the Pats in the Super Bowl, seeing them fall one game short of an undefeated season. But then the one thing happens that doesn't let me do that. The damn Giants make it in.

This would be like if the Braves, or any non-lovable NL team, won the World Series four years in a row, and you're just dying to see them lose one, only to have them end up playing the Yanks, and being forced to root for them, as rooting for the Yanks would not be an option.

So do I automatically root for the Pats? Do I hate the Giants as much as I hate the Yanks, to the point where there's no situation where I could root for them?

If the Pats win, I have to hear even more about how great and perfect they are. And they'll take even more popularity and air-time away from the only team that really matters, the Red Sox. You talk about a perfect season? My perfect season is an entire calendar year in which WEEI spends every minute talking about the Red Sox. Okay, maybe not EEI, but a good station, if it existed. The good news, besides the fact that the crusty old Dolphins would no longer be the only undefeated team in history, would be the fact that Red Sox fans could rub in something else to Yankee fans, provided said Sox fans are Pats fans and said Yankee fans are Giants fans, which, as we know, is not always the case.

If the Giants win, well, my worst nightmare--which, as Matty pointed out, has already been brought up, as a New York writer has proclaimed that a Giants win would top the Red Sox 0-3 comeback against the Yanks--would come true, as next year at Fenway Park, I'd have Yankee fans making fun of me for "choking," because of something the Patriots, who I could care less about, did.

When that thought hit me, I thought, That's it, gotta root against the Giants.

And I thought I'd made my decision. But then I thought, Wait, screw that, I could be at Fenway next year, see people with their "Giants World Champions/Greatest Upset Ever" shirts, and high five them and tell them "good job, some of us are sick of the Pats!" And then we could talk about how cool New York is and stuff. And how much they enjoyed Boston when they went to college here. Because even the Yankee-est of Yankee fans know that to have bragging rights over your rival, you actually have to beat them. Your team. In that sport. Not some other team that plays in the same ci--wait, the Giants play in New Jersey, and isn't Foxboro in Rhode Island anyway?

I "stopped paying attention to football" to avoid dilemmas like this. But even if I was still rooting for the team I grew up with, the Jets, I'd be in this spot. Because I only gave up rooting for my team, not rooting against other teams. That's what kills me here. If I'm officially no longer a football fan, I should be able to root for any team, even the one I always thought of as a rival. I should look at it this way: If the Pats were from Montana and the Giants were from Idaho, I'd be rooting for the Giants, no question. But if the Giants were the team who had won three recent Super Bowls and were going for a perfect record, I'd root for the Pats, no question.

It's weird, I grew up with hatred toward the Giants, and indifference toward the Pats. It's funny to see how those emotions can be swung by talk of perfection and dynasties and pretty boy QBs who wear freakin' Yankee hats....

Hmmmmm.....

All I know is: