Plaxico Burress raised some eyebrows with his early predictions. AP

Monday dawned fresh and clear. Fluffy clouds, a pleasant breeze, temperature in the mid-60's. "You get maybe four or five a days a year like this here," the Redhead says. Some people complain about the cold. "Can you imagine?" says Linda, who sweated through plenty of 115-degree days before I came to take her away.

At breakfast I meet some sports legends. The Celadrin Tigerettes of Livingston, La., whooping it up at the next table. They are the New England Patriots of Senior Women's Basketball. Nikki, Mavis and Wanda just returned from the triumphant Senior Olympics. Youngest Tigerette, 60. Haven't lost a game in three years. Record of 254-3 under the corporate sponsorship of Celadrin "for joint flexability and pain relief," the pain caused by the old gals laying a few hits on people.

"We're on our way to play the CBS anchors!" Wanda hollers at me. "Some kind of slow-moving local team?" I ask. "No, honey!" she hollers, and kapow! I get one on the back. "The anchormen from the TV station." I wish them luck.

The newspapers remind you that the hype has started for real. Dirty play is an early angle. New England LT Matt Light, strong safety Rodney Harrison, of course. Somebody on the Giants accused, can't remember who. Plaxico Burress predicting a 23-17 Giants victory. Oh, my. For God's sake, don't let 'em near each other right now or it'll be bloody.

Am I really getting too old for this? Who knows?

I run into Jerry Kramer in the press lounge. Instant Replay, Ice Bowl, the post-and-drive block, along with Kenny Bowman on Jethro Pugh, for the winning TD, Packers over Cowboys, in the '67 championship, remember? Hey, one question, podnah. If the Patriots win, my follow-up angle will be a historical look at dynasties, so can you tell me, please, which team in the Lombardi dynasty was the greatest? Got to be '62, right, with 11 Hall of Famers?

"Nope, '67's the one I always had a spot in my heart for," he said. "We didn't have the best personnel. Our guys were getting older, but we just had something special. We had to go 65 yards. Our last 10 possessions, 31 plays, had gained nine yards, and now we had to go 65 in four and a half minutes. What in the world would possess you to think you could go all that way when you hadn't done anything?

"One time we had a second-and-18. Chuck Mercein had missed a block on Willie Townes, and he threw Donnie Anderson for an eight-yard loss on a sweep. Then Mercein came back to the huddle and told Bart (Starr), 'When I swing out the linebacker's dropping back.' So Bart threw to him and picked up 19. That's the kind of drive it was.

"I knew we reached down for something ... I really didn't know what we were reaching for. A piece of Lombardi, I guess."

Press day at the stadium Tuesday. I arrive at the field just in time to catch the day's dramatic highlight. In the shadow of Tom Brady's podium a member of SAFE Security is tearing a soccer ball away from an anchorwoman from Mexico City's TV Azteca named Ines Sainz, who wanted to work some soccer-football gimmick with the Patriots. Ines Sainz ... Innocence ... get it? Is this a clever play on words or an accident? I never get to find out because the confiscation of the soccer ball, "for security reasons," has taken center stage.

"I feel so much safer now," I tell the security guy, whose name reads Ford and is as big as one.

"Where you from again?" he asks me. I tell him, "Soccer World." The look he gives me says, "Oh, brother, if only there weren't all these people around ..."

If Joseph Conrad were covering this event, his last scene would have the dying Kurtz muttering, through tortured lips, "The hype, The hype." The Arizona Republic is my favorite hype machine. First I've got to tell you this story of why I love the Republic so much, why it's so close to my heart.

A few years ago I attended a New York tasting of the new vintage wines, sponsored by the Interprofessional Council of Bordeaux. I had gotten Linda in as the photographer for the Republic. The PR ladies who made up the name tags all were French. They asked me where Linda was from and I said, "Arizona Republic." So they made up a tag and pinned it on her.

As we made the rounds, I noticed that people were looking at her and smiling. I hadn't bothered to look at her tag. Finally I did when we got home. It said, BAZUNA REPUBLIC. She had worn it all afternoon. Ah yes, that great emerging nation somewhere on the Ivory Coast. So now the Redhead and I always refer to the paper as The Bazuna.

It's packed with stuff. Every issue has its share of interview features called Five Minutes With. Fred Robbins. "What was it like at 0-2?" Donte Stallworth. "Tennessee offered more money but you went to New England anyway ... "

And then: BUNCH OF QUESTIONS FOR BRADY  The Ankle (three questions). "It's feeling better every day." The Pains of Celebrity (five questions). "With everything in life there's a little bit of give and take."

Five Minutes With ... Napoleon ... Francis Scott Key ... Frankenstein. ("Drinking through a straw ain't easy.")

2 of 3