So let me get this straight.

The National Football League wanted Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts to get to the Super Bowl.

It couldn’t stomach the thought of Tom Brady and the New England Patriots spitting in parity’s pie hole and sullying the Big Game With The Roman Numerals once again.

Given its druthers, any self-respecting league caring a hoot about the heft of its audience would have been rooting for Chicago and Washington last weekend. Having watched its prayers go unanswered, well, I suppose the corporate suits will be cheering for Carolina, if only because more college-educated critical thinkers in the Eastern time zone believe in the existence of Heaven than believe in Seattle.

Please stop, already.

That’s my one, simple request to anyone who has ever plunked down more than $50 for an officially licensed jersey, anyone who’s spent more hours in a week listening to all-sports radio than actually working, or anyone who has actually behaved like Manning stalking the stock boy in that MasterCard commercial.

Just stop. Stop judging others as if they think and act like you. Stop projecting your own level of fanaticism and pettiness onto normal people.

Anyone wearing vertical stripes in one of last weekend’s divisional playoff games has enough on his plate right now without having to humor conspiracy theorists.

Does the league office have some ‘spleenin’ to do, Lucy? You bet your Pittsburgh Steelers pajamas, it does.

Unless Asante Samuel doused his pre-game meal in unadulterated garlic, breathing on Ashley Lelie wasn’t worthy of a 39-yard penalty and a scot-free Denver touchdown.

The post-replay explanation overturning Troy Polamalu’s immaculate interception is the most asinine sports-related statement in history that didn’t emerge from the mouth of Latrell Sprewell.

Thomas Jones wasn’t even within William “The Refrigerator” Perry striking distance of the pylon when the Chicago Bears were granted a gift touchdown against Carolina. That misdeed thankfully was overturned when, gadzooks, instant replay was used the way Pete Rozelle intended.

There is nothing more dreadful in sports than someone wearing a whistle and desperately needing attention, and there’s little question that four all-star crews erred on the side of officious last weekend.

Bad judgment shouldn’t be confused with bad intentions. Unfortunately, that’s where we’ve arrived in America. We assume that everyone in authority has an agenda. And we’re so sure that our team is better than their team that if we’re proven wrong, well, the only logical conclusion is that we got screwed.

Equally troubling is our desperate need to be right. Aren’t the human element and the sacred art of second guessing three-quarters of the fun in sports?

The happiest outcome of the alleged Polamalu scandal is that it’s an affront to the antagonists who insist that we need instant replay run amok in every aspect of the sporting life. Guess what, y’all? Instant replay can’t do anything about biology. Your eyes and mine could watch the same play and see completely different outcomes. The even scarier thought is that both of us could be wrong!

NFL officials are wrong. About 2 to 3 percent of the time, consistently, which is the accepted norm in all sports. Ninety-seven is a magna cum laude average at any institution of higher learning, so I guess it’ll suffice in the NFL, where any fan’s toughest essay question is to define the term “cover two.”

Refs are equally wrong during the regular season. The only reason the American economy has lost thousands of man-hours this week fretting about this is that we actually watched last Saturday and Sunday’s games.

Until the playoffs, our consumption is limited to the Patriots, the Giants, one alternate game the NFL decides we need to see, as many Chris Berman highlights as we can stomach, and as many minutes of miserable Sunday and Monday night match-ups as we can take until Mr. Sandman intervenes.

One hideous call is made every week. Most of us miss it. Somebody wins, somebody loses, and somehow we avert the apocalypse.

For as long as ballgames are played on this planet, there will be fumbles, interceptions, dropped third strikes and phantom whistles. And through it all, 999,999 times out of a million, the better team will win.

Which I can assure you is all the NFL cares about.

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected].