Kneel down, play it safe, go to overtime? Are you crazy, John Madden? Haven’t you been paying attention to the voodoo that they do so well?

Maybe with some other team (not the fortune-kissed New England Patriots),

boasting some lesser kicker (not Adam Vinatieri), playing against some other offense

(not the St. Louis Rams’), in some saner NFL universe where 14-point underdogs

do not dominate the Big Game.

But when Madden declared from the outset of the Patriots’ final possession of Super

Bowl XXXVI on Sunday that they would surely run out the clock and settle for

overtime, you knew he was wrong. This was neither the time nor the team for meek

acceptance.