(Sorry, the whole Roman numeral thing, for my money, should only be used to designate monarchs, popes, ships, eldest sons, world wars, copyright dates, gravestones, and also on expensive clock faces, not for an annual football game during which we slam pizza and pork rinds, and slurp frosty beverages.)

First, they expunged from our minds the tired image, apocryphal or otherwise, of the 1972 Dolphins getting together to celebrate the first defeat of whichever previously unbeaten team could not quite manage to equal or exceed their perfection. Bob Griese once said that story about a champagne toast among former Dolphins was overblown. Don Shula, though, acknowledged that a few Dolphins did, in fact, gather each season for some bubbly to cheer their own eminence.

Either way, it had been more than three decades since any team had dominated the way the Dolphins had - and it was time to put that dog down. The highest-scoring team in the history of the NFL finally did.

I wanna shout.

Second, I picked the Patriots to go all the way right here on this page back in the preseason. It was hardly a lonely, revolutionary selection, but . . . it beat the bejeebers out of picking the Saints to make it to the Super Bowl, which one of my respected colleagues, who shall remain unnamed, did. I don't mean to be kurt . . . er, curt, but I don't know what in the sweet name of Reggie Bush he could have been thinking.

Bush may not be headed for Phoenix, but, last I read, he's had a whale of good time up at Sundance with Kim Kardashian.

This is a line taken from my friend's prognostication: ". . . [N]obody can say I've made an obviously bad choice. Can they?"

Um . . .

Thank you, Tom Brady. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

On the other hand, I can't stand the Patriots. There's a shrewd darkness about their empire that is hard to celebrate, even beyond Bill Belichick's use of video cameras pointed straight into the Jets' huddle in the season opener, a move of illicit espionage that cost the Pats $750,000 in fines and a first-round draft pick.

Still, it's hard to circle.

Is it Brady's ridiculously charmed existence, winning MVPs, throwing TD passes, getting loved by Gisele?

Is it Randy Moss, he of the enormous talent but checkered journey through the NFL, quitting on the Raiders before landing with the Pats and, most recently, having a restraining order slapped on him in connection with some kind of alleged incident with a Florida woman?

Is it Belichick, a condescending-yet-extraordinarily-capable coach who has made a habit of hauling off Lombardi trophies and spitting into the wind, too?

Is it the collective arrogance that comes with making it to four Super Bowls in seven seasons?

Is it the pummeling of Washington and Buffalo, putting heavy points on sorry SOBs for no other reason than they were nowhere near as good?

Or is it, more specifically, the brilliance of one unblemished season? Eighteen straight victories in a league where that simply does not happen, a league of parity that has enabled a bunch of obnoxious old Dolphins to pop the cork on their champagne for 35 years - until now?

Pick your own reasons to love or hate. But appreciate what the Pats have accomplished. It is remarkable.

So remarkable, they've made a team from New York little darlings of the big moment. Football fans around the country will line up behind the Giants, wanting the underdogs to find a way to derail history. A line that started at 14 points has crept down to 12.5 since Sunday, and - who knows? - it might go lower. It should go lower. Not because of Brady's booted foot. The Giants have proved themselves - beyond their 38-35 loss to New England on the last week of the regular season - to be the NFC team with the best shot at giving the Pats a game.

We can only hope they do - because aren't all of us a bit tired of Super Bowls where the pomp-and-circumstance far out-grosses the heft of the competition?

This game will be closer than a lot of people think.

But not close enough to shut the Patriots up, or make my preseason prediction any less bang on than it was the day I made it.

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* GORDON MONSON hosts "The Big Show" weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com.