Run it up, Bill ... and run that weasel Mangini right outta town

God is not cooperating. God or Jon Kitna or Al Gore or whoever controls the weather is going to make it difficult for the New England Patriots to do what they have every right to do this weekend -- beat the hell out of the Jets.

The forecast for Sunday in Foxborough, Mass., calls for heavy wind and snow, which isn't conducive to the kind of Biblical beatdown that gamblers had anticipated and I, frankly, have been hoping to see.

Even non-Bill Belichick fans are rooting for the man in this one. (AP)

You read that right. I'm rooting for New England and its cold fish of a coach, Bill Belichick, to name the score Sunday against the Jets. Gamblers have already named the final margin, installing the Patriots as an NFL-record 27-point favorite, but for me that won't be enough. And I'm guessing it won't be enough for Belichick either.

The Patriots were the team found guilty by the NFL of cheating against the Jets earlier this season, but New York coach Eric Mangini emerged from that fiasco as the biggest jerk of all. And if you don't know where I stand on the size of Belichick's jerkiness, please read what I wrote at the time. Bill Belichick fan? Not me. Except for this weekend.

This weekend needs to be a payback to Mangini for his duplicity. If there's anything I hate more than Belichick a cheater, it's a two-faced cheater -- someone who cheats yet turns in someone else. College basketball coaches do this all the time, including a handful of Big 12 snakes who turned in Kelvin Sampson when he was breaking NCAA rules at Oklahoma. Cheaters make me sick, but cheaters who turn in other cheaters? They should be publicly humiliated.

That is Mangini's fate Sunday. He's the guy who triggered the NFL's investigation into New England's illegal videotaping habits. The Patriots were guilty, and they got caught, and that's the way it ought to be. But for Mangini to be the one to make it happen ... that's brutal. Mangini learned pretty much everything he knows about coaching from Belichick, and while you can believe Belichick never told his protégé about the wonders of videotaping, I don't buy it.

Mangini knew Belichick was cheating because he knew. He didn't say a word when he was in New England. He didn't send Belichick a private note after going to the Jets, either, advising Belichick to stop. He let it continue until it was convenient to rat out his former boss. Belichick got fined $500,000, and his reputation took an even larger hit, but Mangini outed himself as a weasel.

This weekend, Belichick needs to get his revenge. I want him to get his revenge. I want him to score touchdowns and go for two-point conversions and try onside kicks. If the Jets never touched the ball -- imagine a loop of touchdowns and onside kicks and touchdowns and onside kicks -- that would be fine with me. What's the NFL record for most lopsided game in history? I hope the Patriots break it.

This game could be dreadful, but you'll watch. All of us will watch, even if we already know who will win. New England is 13-0, clearly the best team in the NFL this season, probably better than any of its three Super Bowl champions since 2001, and possibly one of the best teams in NFL history. The Jets? They suck. They're 3-10.

We know who's going to win, but we don't know by how much. That's the reason to watch. It's like golf when Tiger Woods was winning majors by 10 strokes. Tiger got great TV ratings because people like seeing a superstar at his peak. We love a front-runner.

We love a front-runner almost as much as we loathe a poor sport. And running up the score on an inferior opponent is definitely poor sportsmanship. But this is different. This isn't Greg Schiano of Rutgers deciding to call three timeouts so his team can get the ball one more time before halftime ... with a 45-0 lead. Against a Division I-AA opponent, Norfolk State. That was abominable, because it was uncalled for.

But there are times when running up the score is not an abomination. Let me give you an example from the college ranks. Last month Wyoming coach Joe Glenn guaranteed his team would beat Utah. How do you think that went over with the Utes? Glenn found out midway through the third quarter when Utah, already leading 43-0, followed a field goal with an onside kick.

The moral to that story is clear: Do unto others as you would have done to you, lest you get blown out 50-0, which was the final score of Utah's win over Wyoming. Glenn's guarantee was a joke, and Utah called him on it -- kind of like New England did to Steelers safety Anthony Smith this past Sunday after Smith guaranteed a Pittsburgh victory. Belichick singled out Smith for a variety of big plays, and after the Patriots were finished with their 34-13 victory, he stuck a verbal knife into Smith's ribcage: "The safety play at that position was pretty inviting."

That was cruel, but sometimes cruelty is called for. This weekend is another of those times. Unless the weather prevents it from happening, New England will run up the score on the Jets. It will be cruel, but it will be called for. Which means it probably shouldn't be called "cruel" at all. Call it something else:

Justice.