A Dynasty Awaits Coronation

They advertised Sunday’s AFC championship game as this season’s “real” Super Bowl, and at least stylistically, they got it right.

The game was a blowout.

Tom Brady was the winning quarterback.

Bill Belichick outcoached the other guy.

Yes, New England’s 41-27 triumph over Pittsburgh sounds pretty much like your garden variety Super Bowl, minus the overrated commercials and the R-rated halftime show.

Still, there’s another game to be played, in Jacksonville, in two weeks’ time, a game that already has the anticlimactic look and feel of the NFL’s old Playoff Bowl, which used to pair the league’s first-round playoff losers in a winner-take-nothing consolation game.

After the 16-2 Patriots took out the 16-2 Steelers by two touchdowns in Pittsburgh, what else does anyone have to prove this season?

We already know which team is the best in professional football, yet the Patriots must trot out one more time on Feb. 6 for an event that means different things to different people.

For the Philadelphia Eagles, who finally solved that home-field disadvantage dilemma in NFC finals, the trip to Jacksonville is the trip of a generation -- the Eagles’ second Super Bowl appearance and their first in 24 years.

For the Patriots, the game represents a victory lap. A coronation. One more chance to hoist the Vince Lombardi Trophy, except this time, the exercise will hold a special resonance for those who doubted there would ever be anything close to the Lombardi Packers during this current age of parity and free agency.

With a victory over Philadelphia, Belichick will move his career postseason record to 10-1 -- one victory more than Lombardi’s hallowed 9-1.

With a victory over the Eagles, Brady will run his postseason record as a starting quarterback to 9-0 -- the same mark owned by Bart Starr.

Over the next two weeks, we will be hearing all the cliches, because the NFL and Fox still have a big party to put on and they want to keep people interested. Belichick and Eagle Coach Andy Reid will probably even recite a few of them, if only to get through all the cattle-call mass-media sessions.

All together now:

It’s not over until it’s over.

There’s a reason they play the game.

Weren’t the Patriots big underdogs to the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI?

Most years, you’d have to give the cliches a fighting chance. But once the beer stops flowing in Philadelphia, the Eagles and their fans will have to take Sunday’s 27-10 triumph over Atlanta for what it actually was: Evidence that the Eagles were the NFC’s best team during the NFC’s worst season.

Not that the Eagles won’t take it. They’ve seen the other option, again and again and again, and winning the championship of a bad conference beats finishing second in a strong conference every time.

But if Reid is looking for appropriate motivational material for his players, he should rent a copy of last year’s Piston-Laker NBA Finals video. Show them it’s possible for the weaker conference to prevail in the big one -- although, in this case, you should also remind them that Brady and Corey Dillon do not hate one another and that Dillon actually listens to his coach and is fine with other people handling the ball and scoring with it.

Then, try to get your players to ignore the following disturbing numbers and omens:

* The Patriots just went into Pittsburgh and beat the Steelers by 14 points. On Nov. 7, the Steelers defeated the Eagles by 24 points, 27-3.

* The last time New England played Philadelphia, the Patriots won in Philadelphia on Sept. 14, 2003, 31-10. Since then, the Patriots have won 29 of 32 games and have added Dillon to their starting backfield.

* The Patriots went 4-0 against the NFC this season. Granted, it was 4-0 against the NFC West, but two of those victories came by scores of 30-20 over Seattle and 40-22 over St. Louis. In the NFC this season, Seattle and St. Louis were known as “playoff teams.”

* The Eagles went 2-2 against the AFC this season. One victory was against Cleveland in overtime, the other was a 15-10 home squeaker over Baltimore.

* The NFC went 20-44 against the AFC this season.

Did you see who handed the Patriots and the Eagles their respective conference championship trophies Sunday? The NFL lined up the quarterbacks who started Super Bowl III to dole out the hardware -- Joe Namath was dispatched to Pittsburgh, Earl Morrall was sent to Philadelphia.

Philadelphians, who worry about these sort of things, couldn’t have liked the symbolism. And Morrall drops back! Jeffrey Lurie is wide open! Morrall delivers! And it’s intercepted!

Give the Eagles and their fans these next few days, though. For a championship-starved city, a 1-3 record in the last four NFC title games sounds like deliverance. Finally, they don’t have to deal with the dreaded question, “How come you can’t win a conference final at home?” No, that question moves across state to Bill Cowher and the Steelers, now 1-4 in home conference finals since 1994.

For the Eagles, Sunday’s breakthrough against the Falcons was, in essence, their Super Bowl.

The Patriots, meanwhile, have another Super Bowl in mind, and it has been there a long time. Dynasty is the agenda, XXXIX marks the spot.

*

FIRST LOOK: SUPER BOWL XXXIX

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS

vs.

PHILADELPHIA EAGLES

Feb. 6 at Jacksonville, Fla.,

3:30 p.m., Channel 11

* Records: Patriots, 16-2; Eagles, 15-3.

* How they got there: Patriots won the AFC East, defeated Indianapolis, 20-3, in the divisional playoffs and defeated Pittsburgh, 41-27, in the conference championship game; Eagles won the NFC East, defeated Minnesota, 27-14, in the divisional playoffs and defeated Atlanta, 27-10 in the conference championship game.

* Head to head records (2004): Did not meet.

* Records vs. common opponents: Patriots, 4-1; Eagles, 2-3.

* All-time regular-season series: Eagles lead series, 6-3.

* All-time playoff series: Never met.

* Last time met: New England defeated Philadelphia, 31-10, on Sept. 14, 2003, at Philadelphia.

* NFL ranks: Offense -- Patriots, 7th; Eagles, 9th. Defense -- Patriots, 9th; Eagles, 10th.