Now, it’s the biggest, most overhyped game of the year (at least since Chargers/Pats or until Pats/Colts), but there is no conflict. Not in the bitterest recesses of my mind.

I will settle for nothing less than the systematic annihilation of the Dallas Cowboys this Sunday.

You see, as a youngster, I was a huge Cowboys fan. It was the Cowboys and Red Sox in my electric football/Strat-o-Matic baseball world, and everything else – food, clothing, school, Six Million Dollar Man lunch boxes, Stretch Armstrong dolls and Pop Rocks – was a mere distraction. I cried tears of joy when my Doomsday heroes crushed the Broncos in Super Bowl XII and I cried myself to sleep when they lost to the Steelers in Super Bowl XIII.

Why the Cowboys? First and foremost, I loved Roger Staubach. He was the most exciting quarterback in football and it seemed like the Cowboys never lost a game if he had the ball last. I also liked Randy White, if only because he was just five letters from having the exact same name as me.

The Cowboys were on TV every week, their uniforms were cool and, as the years went by, their cheerleaders were more interesting to watch.

Then Staubach retired, Danny White took over and led them to three straight crushing defeats in the NFC Championship and gave way to Gary Hogeboom and Steve Pelluer. Suddenly, the Cowboys weren’t on TV so much.

But the New England Patriots were on TV every week, and I had just started picking up the Boston Globe on a regular basis, so they were much easier to follow in the media (this was before Al Gore invented the Internet, kids). I can remember the snowplow game against the Miami Dolphins was the first time I openly rooted for the Pats.

I was still a Cowboys fan first, though. When they beat the Patriots on Thanksgiving Day, 1984 on a Rafael Septien field goal, I had a few mixed emotions but was still happier that it had kept Dallas’ fleeting playoff hopes alive than I was disappointed that it hurt New England’s chances.

The actual reversal came in 1985. I remember the exact moment, even, when the Patriots became the No. 1 draft pick in my heart. It was Week 11. The Cowboys were smoked by the Bears in the early game, 44-0, and then the Patriots beat Seattle, 20-13 in the Kingdome, for their sixth-straight victory. Little did I know that the Pats were on their way to being embarrassed even worse by the Bears in Super Bowl XX, but I decided at that point that it was time to make the leap from America’s Team to Pat Patriot.

I still had a place in my heart for the Cowboys, even though they were awful, for a few more years. But then the final straw came in 1988, when Jerry Jones bought the team and unceremoniously dumped Tom Landry for Jimmy Johnson. I was incensed that he would treat a legend like that, and from that moment, the Cowboys trailed only the Yankees and Lakers as the franchise I loathed the most. Even in Super Bowl XXX, when they played the once-hated Steelers, I wanted the Cowboys to lose, 60-0.

I don’t think 60-0 will be good enough for me tomorrow. After Monday night’s debacle in Buffalo, I actually found the Cowboys more amusing than loathsome, but that has changed. Some bozo on ESPN.com wrote a column comparing Tony Romo to Tom Brady. Are you kidding me? And then Terrell Owens referred to Randy Moss as “the other 81.” Now I want the Cowboys to suffer another Bears-like whoopin’, this time at the hands of the greatest team to come along since those Monsters of the Midway, the Flying Elvii.

I want Asante Samuel and Ellis Hobbs to make Romo think his brutal game on Monday night was the best night he had all week.

I want Randy Moss to catch a touchdown pass, run to the star at midfield, pull a deflated T.O. blow-up doll out of his sock, blow it up, then go Albert Haynesworth on its head (I’d prefer the real thing, but that would cost Moss a suspension).

I want Tom Brady to walk up to Romo after the game with Giselle on his arm and scoff “You think you’re a player, Romo? You’re playin’ in the minor leagues, kid.”

I want Bob Kraft to overpower Cowboy security, kidnap Jerry Jones and escort him to Tom Landry’s name on the Ring of Honor, then force him to polish it until Jones can see his elastically-secured visage inside the “o” in Tom.

I want Bill Belichick to meet Wade Phillips at midfield, shake his hand and sneer “If you ask me, they named the wrong one ‘Bum.'”

I want all the front-running Cowboy fans to scurry back into the woodwork they’ve suddenly come out of the last couple of weeks and slowly arrive at the painful realization that it doesn’t matter what they do for the next three months because they’re playing in the JV conference.

I don’t just want dominance and humiliation. I want destruction. I want the Cowboys hit so hard that stupid star on their helmets doesn’t stop spinning until next summer. I want Texas Stadium to implode. I want them to have to play their Thanksgiving game against the New York Jets on a turkey farm, which is where both of those franchises belong.

You hear that, Patriots? I want the Dallas Cowboys wiped off the face of the Earth by tomorrow night.

If not, at least cover the spread, OK, fells?