01:00 AM EST on Friday, January 30, 2004

HOUSTON -- Troy Brown blew it.

If the Patriots lose the Super Bowl, it's his fault.

Hate to put it all on him, but, hey, he had control of the game -- as well as the game controls -- in his hands and he dropped the ball. He was all thumbs. Or, as the case may be, not enough thumbs. Not quick-enough thumbs, anyway. Not dextrous-enough thumbs. Whatever, the Carolina Panthers now can thumb their noses at the New England Patriots, confident -- as they should be -- that victory is in their grasp.

The fact is, Brown had a chance to clinch another Super Bowl triumph for the Patriots and couldn't close the deal.

He came through two years ago, but he came up short this time.

And now the Pats are in trouble. Big trouble.

For the past eight years, players from the teams competing in the Super Bowl have played a midweek video game against one another. And, each year for the past eight years, the guy who won the video game also turned out to play for the team that wound up winning the Super Bowl.

Two years ago, in New Orleans, Brown led the video Patriots to a midweek victory over the video Rams. Then, on Super Bowl Sunday, the two-touchdown underdog Pats upset St. Louis, 20-17.

So it made sense that the Patriots again decided to have Brown represent them this year against Carolina to play 989 Sports NFL GameDay 2004 on the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system.

As it turned out, perhaps the Pats would have been better off to send Ty Law. The all-pro cornerback might have had better success against Panthers wide receiver Steve Smith, whose video Cats beat Brown's video Pats, 29-21.

"I hope we keep the streak alive," Smith said after coaching-quarterbacking-thumbing his way to a win in which Carolina running back Stephen Davis scored four touchdowns.

The Patriots have a real-life streak of 14 straight wins, the second-longest, single-season streak in NFL history. But, if history is any guide, that streak is in serious jeopardy now.

You say you don't take such things seriously?

Next thing you're going to say is that you don't believe in the Curse of the Bambino.

So go ahead, stroll under that ladder. Pay no attention to that black cat crossing the street in front of you. Don't worry about stepping on those cracks in the sidewalk -- your mother's back will be just fine.

Overlook that four-leaf clover. Toss that rabbit's foot away. Who needs a shamrock in their pocket.

Laugh, if you will, at such superstitions, omens and portents. But such things are taken very seriously during this overhyped week, when the Super Bowl is not -- repeat, not -- the only game in town. Far from it, in fact.

There are all sorts of hard-fought, hotly contested, highly competitive events taking place.

Yesterday afternoon, for instance, there was a sporting classic just down the freeway. Everything in Houston is down the freeway, which is invariably and inevitably packed with cars, making this sprawling, never-considered-zoning, humid, traffic-blighted city a sort of prairie Los Angeles, without the reward of having a beach at the end of the road.

It was just the sort of event to delight those pickup-drivin', NASCAR-lovin', overall-wearin' rednecks in town from Carolina to watch the Big Game.

It was the Southwest Airlines Pro-Tow, in which such past and present NFL players as Elvin Bethea, Charles Davis, John Grimsley, Charlie Taylor and Spencer Tillman went rope-to-rope against members of the 147th Fighter Wing of the Texas National Air Guard to see who could pull a 737 the farthest.

How that measured up against Tuesday afternoon's Chunky Wagon Challenge is a matter of taste.

In that event, the Campbell's Soup "Mama's Boys" -- Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, Giants defensive end Michael Strahan and Tampa Bay safety John Lynch -- drove little covered wagons, with their Mamas, bless 'em, perched right up there on the buckboard alongside.

That was sandwiched -- as in soup and sandwich, get it? -- between two other tension-filled competitions: The Kraft Super Bowl Cook-Off, pitting Super Bowl XIX rivals Dan Marino and Joe Montana against one another to determine who could whip up the best Super Bowl party dishes; and the Breathe Right "Snore-Off," featuring Raiders receiver Jerry Rice, to see who'd be crowned the NFL's loudest snorer.

Marino won the Cook-Off. Sorry, but I can't tell you who won the Snore-Off. I fell asleep.

Which was probably a good thing, because I'll be tossing and turning between now and Super Sunday since Smith's Panthers beat Brown's Patriots.

Even though he lost the video game, Brown hasn't lost confidence.

"I'm ready for the real deal," he insisted.

So he says. But history, unfortunately, says otherwise.