In our sports culture, there is first place and then there is a 30-way tie for last, give or take a couple, depending on the size of your league.

If the Giants win the Super Bowl, every promising young quarterback in this great land will stand in front of a mirror practicing his Eli face: eyes wide, mouth agape, like someone stole his lunch money.

Former critics will hail Tom Coughlin as a misunderstood genius. Tiki Barber will be told to put a sock in it.

America will learn how to say “Osi Umenyiora.” Teachers will laud him for using all five vowels.

Chrysler will name its new line of SUVs after Brandon Jacobs.

And the Patriots’ near-perfect season will be recalculated as a big, fat zero.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying it’s right. This is just how it is.

Win it all, and everything you do is validated. You could be a madman running players through vats of Jell-o in two-a-days and, at the next coaches’ convention, they’d ask you what flavor.

Lose in the finals, though, and everyone looks at you like, “How’d you get in here, anyway?”

The higher the stakes, the more you risk. On the world’s biggest stage, everyone sees you fall.

And it would be a collapse of monumental proportions if the Patriots were to lose to the Giants in Arizona.

Nevermind the sizable point spread, which opened at 13 1â2 in New England’s favor. The Patriots have more on the line.

They have to beat history, which comes with its own odds.

Pressure has been building on the Patriots all year, layer upon layer, week after week. Ask any team what it’s like. Records distract from proper goals. Expectations increase. Pretty soon, the elation after victories is edged out by relief.

For the most part, the Patriots have handled the pressure fabulously.

No matter how you think they stack up with the Cowboys of the early ’90s, or the 49ers of the ’80s or the Steelers of the ’70s – and coming from the salary-cap era, they may not even rank second – what they’re set on accomplishing now surely would set them apart.

“Separation is key in history,” linebacker Junior Seau said, “and we have a chance to do that now.”

But the possibilities are the problem.

The Patriots aren’t just trying to win four Super Bowls in a decade, as the 49ers and Steelers did.

Some of Seau’s teammates, who were around for other Super Bowls, sense the difference, and are downplaying the bigger picture.

After Sunday’s 21-12 win over San Diego, when a few cracks started to show, a couple of the Patriots said they haven’t thought about the prospects of a perfect record since the end of the regular season.

Prediction: They’ll think about it a lot over the next two weeks, when it’ll be the primary topic of discussion in every sports section, sportscast, blog and talk show in the country.

The Patriots can run, but they can’t hide from it.

They’ll hear it argued in bars and whispered in pews. And as the references mount, so will the pressure.

If the Patriots win another Super Bowl, as they should, the feeling this time will be different from the other three. Mixed with the thrill of victory and the sting of champagne will be a profound sense that the pressure’s off.

If the Patriots win, Bill Belichick will put to rest any lingering suspicion that he has to cheat to win.

Tom Brady will provide convincing evidence that he’s the best quarterback ever.

Brett Favre will secretly tell friends he could have beaten the Patriots, but he won’t believe it.

And Tony Romo will tell friends he could have beaten the Patriots, but no one else will believe that.