The only thing that is more fun to watch on TV these days than American Idol, is the sometimes absurd primary campaign for President. That is, if you are a political junkie. What confuses most of us, is how the political pollsters and pundits can be SO WRONG, SO OFTEN.

They called Iowa wrong and then made the same mistake in New Hampshire.

As of this writing, the Redskins still haven't announced a new head-coach to replace Joe Gibbs. The smart money should be on current Assistant Head Coach, Defense, Gregg Williams. Of course, with the Redskins, smart money might be hard to come by.

Look for 'Skins owner Dan Snyder to keep trying to woo Vince Lombardi out of "retirement…"

The New York football Giants are headed to next month's Superbowl, a place nobody had them going as recently as a week ago. The Green Bay Packers and their timeless Peter Pan of a quarterback, Brett Favre, were who everybody outside of New York wanted to root for, a fitting tribute for a team that has long defined the NFL and a player that has captured even the imaginations of people who 9 Sundays out of 10 could care less what's happening on the field.

What Brett Favre has made a career of doing, catching lighting in a bottle, reinventing the position he has played for a remarkable 275 straight starts, may never, ever be seen by any of us ever again. Favre has never been confused for some kind of textbook pocket-passer, a guy seemingly born to highlight the fundamentals of the position. He's an improvisational master blessed with a Howitzer of an arm, a gambler, and every time he goes on the field you know in your heart he's got as good a chance to win as anybody.

But that love of the game, that devil-may-care, wildfire attitude has, on more than one occasion, gotten Favre into trouble, and, in a biting twist of irony, the kind whose sting and burn seem to wait for the playoffs to leak into any tiny, papercut sliver of hope, it was a disastrous mistake by Favre, the magic man who'd led his team of boys, one of the youngest in the league, to the very brink of the Superbowl, that finally brought Green Bay's season to a crushing end.

Across the field, Eli Manning, younger brother of sainted Peyton, stood on the threshold of a game that will, for good or bad, come to define him as a player. For his entire career the draft through which Manning came to New York has been that definitive moment; being a number-one pick, indeed the first number-one since Elway to hijack a draft because he didn't want to play in a specific city, it's no surprise. But there has been a nastiness directed at Manning, bile more bitter than that which we have come to expect for athletes who've yet to deliver on that most magical of traits: potential.

Maybe it's the draft thing. Maybe it's the fact that his older brother is precisely what you would show to someone who wanted to know how to play the position. Perhaps it's that Eli can come across as a little too "aw, shucks" for the year 2008. Whatever the reason, it took a season like this, one which started with a former teammate stabbing Eli in the back, essentially dismissing his leadership efforts as laughable, one which saw him finish a game with more incompletions than any quarterback in the modern era, a season in which his inconsistencies finally started falling by the wayside, and a conference championship game in which he clashed against the one quarterback whose character and talent he seems most to resemble for us all to finally start clambering onto the Eli bandwagon rather than jumping, screaming, off of it.

The Patriots are a buzz-saw, ripping towards the Superbowl with about as little enthusiasm and excitement as one would think possible from a team not comprised of rocks and molds. (There is some Moss, but c'mon…) But New England hasn't looked like the team that was drubbing other clubs like a hunter against baby seals in the beginning of the season. In fact, the Pats haven't covered the spread in 8 of their last 9 games, and they've already been installed as 14-point-favorites by Vegas. On top of all that, New England will technically be the home team when the Superbowl kicks off on February 3 in the Arizona desert, facing a visiting team in the Giants that has won 9 (nine!) road-games in a row.

New York's defense is a slathering, foaming-at-the-mouth, quarterback-punishing bunch that is playing at its highest level of the season; they'll punch New England's Tom Brady in the face hard and often throughout the game.

But I don't think it'll be enough. Indoors, away from the elements, New England's offense should revert to the silly form they exhibited earlier in the season, stretching the field and piling up points faster than the Giants can possibly hope to match. I think New York will make it interesting, but as much as I hate to say it, I think Belichick and his horde of hoodied rabble will run away with their 4th title in the last 7 seasons. Blegh.

Enjoy the game. And keep an eye out for that Manning kid.

On a personal note, the wife and I will be taking in the game in Columbus, Ohio, this year, home of the original Snackerbowl. Candied bacon, bacon chocolate chip cookies, chili and pulled pork will be among the artery-clogging-delicacies consumed during this annual fest of football and the snackers that love it. If I don't make it back, rest assured I went out with a pork cracklin' dusted smile on my bacon grease smeared lips.

Urp…