Take it or leave it, the New York Giants and the New England Patriots are going to play each other in a rematch of Super Bowl XLII less than two weeks from now.

I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t like either team, but that doesn’t mean I’m ungrateful for a superb NFL season that yielded more memories than any previous season I can remember watching as a dedicated, life-long fan.

I want to talk about the Super Bowl, but there will be a time and a place to analyze the epic rematch, and that is next week.

For now, I want to review and highlight the best games from this past season. There simply isn’t enough room in the column for me to encapsulate everything I want to say about the 2011-2012 NFL season, so allow me to conduct this as an awards ceremony instead.

Best Individual Play: San Francisco’s Vernon Davis’ game-winning touchdown grab against New Orleans in the Divisional Round of the playoffs. Davis’ emotional embrace with head coach Jim Harbaugh made this moment even more special, and seeing the 49ers return to relevancy after a decade of mediocrity was a nice touch, too.

Best two-minute drive: It may come as a surprise, but the quarterback that engineered the best two-minute drive this season isn’t even a Pro Bowler. However, Baltimore’s Joe Flacco is the winner here for leading the Ravens past the Steelers in Week 9 with a spectacular late drive where he connected with wideout Torrey Smith for the game-winner with eight seconds left on the clock.

Best come-from-behind victory: Denver’s Week 14 shocking victory over the Bears is without question the most inexplicable win any team earned this season. The Broncos were down and out until Tim Tebow and Co. took over to finally legitimize Mile High Magic with a 13-10 OT victory that still has football fans scratching their heads.

Best early season game: The season started with a bang when the Packers stopped the Saints on the one-yard line to preserve a 42-34 victory in Week 1. Many thought we’d see a rematch of this game eventually, but neither team survived past the Divisional round.

Best mid-season game: A Week 6 matchup between the then-undefeated Detroit Lions and the 4-1 San Francisco 49ers turned infamous when Harbaugh over-celebrated his team’s victory by shoving Detroit coach Jim Schwartz, who ran down Harbaugh for a confrontation on the field.

Best late season game: With the Broncos-Bears game already a winner in this column, the obvious choice here has to be Green Bay’s Week 15 loss at Kansas City. Most people will forget in years to come that this season’s Packers team was on the brink of football immortality. If it wasn’t for KC and Kyle Orton pulling the biggest upset of the year, Green Bay would have been only the third team in football history to go undefeated in the regular season.

Best playoff game: Each round of this postseason has bred an instant classic for the ages. Round one, the Broncos upset Steelers on the first play of OT. Round two, 49ers top Saints in high-scoring 4th quarter. Conference championship round, Giants outlast the 49ers in OT. The winner? The Giants 20-17 win on Sunday.

Best quarterback: In a season full of top-notch quarterback play, it seems only fair to say that we will have to wait and see to give this award. A Super Bowl championship will anoint either Brady or Manning to this title.  

Best storyline going into Super Bowl Sunday: Eli Manning has the potential to go 2-0 in Super Bowls, but more importantly 2-0 versus Tom Brady in Super Bowls. With a win, Manning not only surpasses big brother, Peyton, he without question raises himself above Brady.

Who would have seen that coming five months ago? That’s why they play the game.