Power Rankings: Super matchup likely just wishful thinking

Updated Nov. 18

Can we cancel the rest of the season and just play the Super Bowl now?

It's the Tennessee Titans, the last undefeated team, against the New York Giants, the league's best team.

Why bother with the final six weeks? Why bother with the playoffs?

Put them in Tampa now -- Giants favored by six -- and get it on.

It will be the Giants' fierce rushing offense trying to move Albert Haynesworth and his mates off the ball. It will be Kerry Collins, the aging quarterback, playing against the team he took to the Super Bowl eight years ago.

It will be Jeff Fisher vs. Tom Coughlin, just like the old days when they were division rivals.

Can you feel the excitement? Can you feel the passion?

I can.

I'm also a realist.

As much as I'd like to think it's that easy to predict that the league's two best teams --- and the top two here in the CBSSports.com Power Rankings -- will make it to the Super Bowl, recent years have taught us otherwise.

These two franchises are perfect teams to illustrate that.

In 1999, the Titans made it to the Super Bowl as a wild-card team, winning road games at Indianapolis and at Jacksonville to do so. In 2000, they were the AFC's top seed, but lost at home against the Baltimore Ravens in the divisional round.

The long shot got there, the favorite didn't.

The Giants won the Super Bowl last year by winning three road playoff games and knocking off the 18-0 New England Patriots. They got hot at the right time.

That can happen again this season. Somewhere there is a team that will use the next six weeks and the playoffs to make a run, timing it just right.

It has happened two of the past three seasons, with the Steelers also winning a title as a wild-card team in 2005.

So while we'd all like to race to put the Titans and Giants in the Super Bowl, and it's almost a lock they'll have the No. 1 seeds in their conferences, history tells us that won't be the case.

That doesn't mean we can't picture it and play it out in our heads.

Can't you see Brandon Jacobs barreling into Haynesworth or the 6-foot-6 Plaxico Burress against feisty 5-foot-10 Cortland Finnesgan? How about the Tennessee offensive line, arguably the best in football, against that Giants front?

Play it out now. The reality is it's probably not going to happen.

The Power Rankings through Week 11:

RANK	TEAM		MOVE (LW)