By RICK CARPINIELLO
The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News

NEW YORK - Give us more! More! Add more wild cards if you have to. Do whatever is necessary to give us more playoffs.

There may have never before been a more scintillating baseball postseason than the one we witnessed in October, and the football playoffs of the past few weeks is threatening, or promising, to match it.

People, mostly purists or old-schoolers, have argued that the more teams allowed into the playoffs, the cheaper the regular season becomes. Well, so what? Give us the cheap regular season, and crank it up when it counts, because these two sets of playoffs have been nothing short of spectacular.

And you know what? Sunday's AFC championship game in Foxboro, Mass., with Peyton Manning's high-wire Indianapolis Colts taking on the well-drilled 13-straight-wins New England Patriots, could be as good as any game we've seen.

"Obviously, the Colts are, you know, running through these playoffs like nobody I have ever seen before," Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. "They have done a tremendous job offensively, and as a team, getting on top, staying on top, and in a way, kind of making it look easy."

Easy? Yeah, right. Even as the Colts were running (and passing) the Kansas City Chiefs ragged last week, the Chiefs were hanging in there, eventually losing by a single touchdown in a fabulous four-game weekend in which two games were decided by field goals, one ended in OT, and another in double-OT.

It was October all over again.

Around here, you might tend to forget what an unforgettable October that was, because around here all you hear about is how the New York Yankees failed in losing the World Series.

Have you forgotten what led up to that Series? How about the Florida Marlins knocking off the San Francisco Giants in the division series by winning Game 3 in the bottom of the 11th inning after the Giants went ahead in the top of the 11th; then winning Game 4, which ended on a collision at home plate between J.T. Snow, who carried the tying run, and Pudge Rodriguez?

How about Boston dropping the first two games to Oakland (Game 1 in 11 innings, after the A's tied the game in the bottom of the ninth); staying alive in Game 3 with an 11th-inning win, tying the series with two runs in the bottom of the eighth to win Game 4, and hanging on for a 4-3 win in Game 5?

How about the two league championship series, featuring the two most cursed franchises in sports, the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox, both of whom were a matter of outs away from getting to the World Series? The Cubs blew their chance in Game 6 - forget the fan who got all the blame - and the Red Sox got Aaron Booned in Game 7 of their bloody series with the Yankees. Wow!

Now the NFL and its parity and all of that come to the forefront. Yeah, baseball is still the National Pastime, with all its romance and poetry. But football is America's living-room favorite, make no mistake, and the NFL playoffs have pulled you out of your recliner and made you drop your remote.

We had the heavyweight, brutally physical Baltimore-Tennessee wild-card round game won by the Titans 20-17; and the Green Bay Packers, behind a mourning Brett Favre, beat Seattle on an interception return in OT.

Last weekend was the topper, as Carolina beat St. Louis 29-23 in the second overtime, after the Rams had gotten back into the game on a two-point conversion, and an onside kick recovered by kicker Jeff Wilkins. Then Rams coach Mike Martz went Grady Little, refusing to take a shot at the win in regulation despite 39 seconds and a timeout remaining at the Carolina 15-yard line.

That night, New England outlasted a tough, banged-up Tennessee, 17-14 in vicious cold and wind.

Kansas City stood in there with Indianapolis' unstoppable offense, losing 38-31, and Favre's inexplicable air-ball interception throw in overtime, following an unbelievable instant-classic 27-yard pass on fourth-and-26, from Donovan McNabb to Freddie Mitchell - sent Philadelphia to a third straight NFC title game, 20-17.

Which brings us to Sunday and the "How can they top this?" portion of the playoffs. The Eagles and Panthers play the evening game, by which time they will know which AFC team is in the Super Bowl.

But it is the AFC game that might be the Super Bowl in that it could be the best game of the whole bunch.

The Pats, who do everything well, allowed only 11 touchdown passes all season, but four of those came in a 38-34 win over Indianapolis. They look to run their winning streak to 14 games overall, which would be the longest one-season-plus-playoff streak other than the perfect 17-0 season posted by the Miami Dolphins in 1972. Their quarterback, Tom Brady, is 7-0 in his postseason career (only Terry Bradshaw went unbeaten in at least five postseason games, 5-0). Last week, by the middle of the second quarter, he had already completed passes to eight different catch-and-run receivers. He also threw a crucial block late in the game.

The Colts come in having scored 79 points in two games, with 10 touchdowns and three field goals on just 17 possessions (and punter Hunter Smith has yet to be called upon).

"That is absolutely unbelievable to me," New England's Matt Light said. "To see a team go a couple of games and not punt the ball, in the playoffs, that says a lot about those guys up front, the guys catching the ball, the guy throwing it. They are obviously all doing a great job."

Manning's career 96.3 quarterback rating in the postseason is second only to Bart Starr's 104.8. He was co-MVP of the league, with Tennessee's Steve McNair, who took the Pats to the limit last week. Now it is the Colts' offense, against Belichick's blitzing, creative defense.

So bring it on. Give us more. Top that.

Our tickers can take it. I think.

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