Who's going to play? Who's not going to play?

 

We don't know. And neither do you. We can't get into all the rumor and fluff. We can only look at the data in hand.

 

And the data in hand paints a pretty clear picture: the Patriots rank No. 1 in four of our seven Quality Stats, each of which has a direct correlation to winning football games.

 

The Giants do not.

 

The Patriots have also built their 15-0 record with a 6-0 mark against Quality Teams, beating these opponents, including a single-seasoon record four victories over division winners, by an average of 22.0 PPG. The Giants boast just a single win all year against a Quality Team: a 24-17 victory over the Redskins way back in Week 3. They've lost their five other games against Quality Teams.

 

Oh, sure, New York does field the No. 1 Defensive Hogs in the NFL. But that would be an advantage over any other team in football. Not over the Patriots, who boast the No. 1 Offensive Hogs in the NFL.

 

The only area where the Patriots are not among the most dominant in the league is in Defensive Passer Rating, wherye they rank a lowly 7th. (Hey, we found the chink in the armor!) Of course, the Giants can offer up only one of the most ineffective passing attacks in the game, led by Eli Manning and his Jeff George-esque 70.9 passer rating.

 

Bottom line: A lot is being made of what the Giants can do to spoil history. Hey, it's the NFL. Anybody can beat anybody. But if you throw out all the noise around the game, it's pretty obvious the Patriots are a much better team than the Giants. They've handily beat much better teams than the Giants. And with history riding on the outcome, they should be able to squeeze out a narrow three-TD win over the Giants, much like they have the rest of the playoff field in this stadium-burning, record-breaking stomp through the pile of Chic vinyl that is the 2007 season.