Hoping for a Super spectacular

Patriots-Giants or Patriots-49ers would super-size title game

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Eli Manning and the Giants beat Tom Brady and the Patriots in Week 9, but a rematch would be fantastic, NBCSports.com contributor Jelisa Castrodale writes.

OPINION

updated 4:05 p.m. ET Jan. 17, 2012

Jelisa Castrodale

If you were forced to spend 72 hours fighting some kind of House-worthy death flu, last weekend was the perfect time. Take a triple-digit temperature, add four NFL playoff games and wrap it all in a frayed bath robe and you?ll understand why I spent two days shuffling from sofa to sofa and also why I?ll die alone.?

The division matchups made it worth being quarantined in my apartment and being contagious gave me an excuse to watch all of them, every minute from Saturday?s Candlestick Park kickoff until Aaron Rodgers walked off the field on Sunday night, doomed to spend the rest of the offseason practicing his Discount Double Check in the bathroom mirror.

After the Giants dispatched the Packers, I flipped to NBC for the Golden Globes, which is apparently one of the side effects of prescription cough syrup. Halfway through the show and half asleep, I started to see similarities between the potential Super Bowl matchups and the awards show. Maybe it was the spectacle and fanfare. Maybe it was because both of them involve Madonna (who, at this point, looks like the offspring of a free safety and a strip of beef jerky). Or maybe it was just the codeine.???

Regardless, here are each of the four possible Super Bowl XLVI matchups and their Globe-inspired titles, listed in order of least preferred to a pair of ?NO ONE SHOULD SPEAK TO ME UNTIL ONE TEAM IS BRUSHING CONFETTI OFF THEIR SHOULDER PADS? games.?

Ravens-49ers: ?Modern Family?
There will be other aspects to the Ravens-49ers Super Bowl, but the plot point you?ll hear about for two straight weeks will be the clash between the sons of Jack and Jackie Harbaugh (a couple who, in my head, always wear embroidered windsuits in contrasting colors). Jim?s 49ers and John?s Ravens met for the first time on Thanksgiving Day, a 16-6 Baltimore victory.?

Both teams lived up to their billing that day. The 49ers held Ray Rice to 59 yards. The Ravens repeatedly stuffed Frank Gore, limiting him to 39 yards, and sacked Alex Smith nine times. NINE. Nine of his league-worst 44 trips to the turf happened while the rest of us were eating pecan-encrusted sweet potatoes.?

Harbowl II would be another evenly balanced defensive battle between two of the NFL?s stingiest squads. Team Jim held opponents to 14.3 points per game during the regular season ? second only to Pittsburgh ? and Team John is right behind them with 16.6 ppg.

Does that make for compelling, entertaining football? Yes, if you?re attending Nick Saban?s Super Bowl party (which we imagine only involves Nick Saban).?

Ravens-Giants: ?War Horse?
Before it became the noun-iest entry on Stephen Spielberg?s IMDB page, a war horse was defined as ?a person who has long experience in a field.? Or on a field, if you?re Ray Lewis, the NFL?s war horsiest war horse. (Webster?s third definition is ?something that has been overly familiar or hackneyed due to much repetition, kind of like his beyond-irritating incisor-baring pregame dance routine.?)

The last time these two teams met, it was at Super Bowl XXXV in January 2001. Trent Dilfer led Baltimore to a 35-7 victory, and the team?s only Lombardi trophy. Of the players listed on the two starting lineups, two (Shannon Sharpe and Rod Woodson) have earned Century 21-style blazers and busts in Canton. Three are position coaches for other teams. But only one ? Ray Lewis ? is still playing, let alone starting, let alone leading the Ravens D with 95 total tackles. (Kerry Collins? three games with the Colts don?t count).?

Tom Brady called the Ravens ?the best team we?ve faced all year,? gushing that they ?have some of the best players in the history of the NFL at their positions.??

Unfortunately, those players aren?t on offense. The question for this game ? and for Sunday in Foxborough ? is whether Joe Flacco could put up enough points to outscore the league?s second- (New England) and fifth-(Giants) ranked passing attacks. The D will do its part; Baltimore only allowed three QBs to break 300 yards this season.?

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More newsJim Rogash / Getty Images

Hoping for a Super spectacular

??Castrodale: The Super Bowl is always must-see TV, but a Patriots-Giants or Patriots-49ers matchup would lift the game into another stratosphere.

Andy Lyons / Getty Images

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46027158/ns/sports-nfl/

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