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First, the disclaimer: a Patriots' fan I am not.

Nope.

Actually, my membership to NFL team fandom expired after the 1996 season, when the team I rooted for was uprooted by owner Bud Adams to Tennessee. Ah, my Houston Oilers. The good old days of the run-and-shoot, the powder-blue uniforms, Warren Moon throwing 45 times a game to Curtis Duncan, Drew Hill and Haywood Jeffires, coach Jerry Glanville leaving tickets at the gate for Elvis and then Glanville's successor Jack Pardee leaving his game-management abilities at the gate come playoff time.

Those were some good times.

More good than bad, because obviously I'll never forget the single biggest choke in NFL playoff history when the Oilers blew a 32-point, second-half lead and eventually lost in OT to the Buffalo Bills. Man, that hurt. The phone was ringing off the hook after that debacle. There were a couple of other playoff flops along the way, and of course the classic sideline fist fight between coordinators Buddy Ryan and Kevin Gilbride. But my allegiance to the team didn't really follow to Tennessee. I was a man without a team. I suppose it would have been easy for me to just jump on the Patriot bandwagon some of you, seeing how that was about the time that Bill Parcells had planted the seeds for what is now perceived in some circles as a dynasty. But I never did become a Pats' fan.

I don't hate the Patriots, though. I mean, how can you? It seems as though they just win and go about their business. What's not to like about that?

That's why I was sort of surprised in the week leading up to the Indianapolis game to hear all of the negativity directed towards the Patriots from other parts of the country. If you just tuned in to your local news outlets you missed it because everything around here is tinted Patriot red, white, and blue, and the 'Go Team!' sports segments are all but delivered with pom-poms.

But a lot of what was being written or discussed outside of New England was over-the-top anti-Patriots.

"They win too much, it's someone else's turn" was basically the rally cry.

Dare I say that the modern-day Patriots were drawing comparisons to - gulp - the New York Yankees.

Your beloved New England Patriots, and the Yankees?! Come on. The Evil Empire? Nah. Blasphemy.

The only thing the teams have in common is that they win, and they've won recently.

Seriously, the Yankees were winning World Series titles hand over fist before Pat Patriot was even a pencil sketch on the drawing board. Just because you win three Super Bowls in four years does not entitle you to the tradition and history of a 100-year old franchise.

Besides, they don't even go about winning the same way. Yeah, both teams have owners who are committed to winning, but George Steinbrenner and the Yankees pretty much just throw cash out to the best-named player available and try to finance a title. Robert Kraft and the Patriots, they couldn't be more frugal, and they couldn't do a better job in hiring the coaches and scouts who know how to evaluate and cultivate talent while actually adhering to a salary cap. But both teams are also a victim of their success. It wasn't long ago that an American League East pennant was feted in the Bronx, now it's a formality and anything less than a ring is a failure. An AFC East title used to be unheard of around here, but now it's expected. The Patriots are also expected to compete for Super Bowls no matter how undermanned or inferior their talent is at certain positions.

The parallels end there.

Or do they?

The more I thought about it the more it occurred to me that the Patriots do indeed have a lot in common with the Yankees, and not just the recent winning, the patriotic symbolism of their logos, the fact that they are at the same time loved and loathed by legions across the country, or, as Colt's coach Tony Dungy admitted, the "mystique," something the Yankees had pretty much trademarked.

Start with the owners: Steinbrenner and Kraft are both experts at self-promotion, though The Boss has proven to be the more meddlesome of the two.

The coaches: Are there two more emotionless or stoic individuals on their respective sidelines than Bill Belichick and Joe Torre? I think I've seen Belichick smile three, no four times since he's been in charge. Torre? I swear sometimes that it's just a cardboard cutout of him sitting down in the dugout and the real Torre only comes out for pitching changes. Yet the two coaches get the most out of their players and they are proven winners.

Belichick (Eric Mangini, Romeo Crennel, Charlie Weis) and Torre (Willie Randolph, Joe Girardi, Lee Mazilli) have also seen their coaching staffs picked over by other franchises, again the victims of their own success.

I won't go player for player here because of time and space constraints... but tell me that Tom Brady isn't football's version of Derek Jeter. Calm, cool, collected and definitely clutch.

There's no one more poised in the final minutes of a game than Brady, and there's no one more clutch than Jeter in the late innings - uh, uh, please don't say Big Papi... you're thinking it, but don't say it because he hasn't done it long enough, not yet.

Both Jeter and Brady are team leaders to the nth degree and command respect without saying a word. They both know how to carry themselves, they both have the matinee idol looks (advantage Brady I suppose), and they both have the rings.

Bernie Williams is Troy Brown, there's no getting around that - the long-tenured, grizzled veterans who have endured with the franchises as others come and go, the player who will do whatever it takes just to wear the uniform. Williams would do grounds crew work if it meant getting the start in left field for the Yanks, while Brown, well he's already proven he'll play defensive back or run back kicks if it means helping the team win. The true company men.

For arguments sake, Mariano Rivera is to the Yankees what Adam Vinatieri was to the Patriots - the closer.

Rivera's the guy you want on the mound to get the last three outs of a big game. Vinatieri was the guy you wanted on the field to get the last three points of a big game. No one has more postseason saves than Rivera and no one has more game-winning field goals in the playoffs than Vinatieri. The two are money in the bank... but unfortunately for Patriots' fans, Vinatieri is going for ring No. 4 next weekend instead of planning a golf outing.

Call it luck or good fortune, but both the Yankees and Patriots have also had their share during their recent streaks.

If the infamous Jeffrey Maier doesn't reach over the right field wall and take a fly ball away from Baltimore Oriole outfielder Tony Tarasco (for a Jeter home run), then perhaps the Yankees are eliminated in the 1996 ALCS instead of being springboarded to what would be their first of four World Series titles in five years.

For the Patriots, a little play involving the 'tuck rule' might ring a bell. A play in the 'Snow Bowl' that needs no explanation, turned certain defeat to the Oakland Raiders to eventual victory and paved the way to Super Bowl XXXVI - the first of three trophies to come to Foxboro. (You can throw in the Troy Brown strip of Marlon McRee after a fourth down interception a couple of weeks ago as well, but it doesn't carry as much weight now seeing how the Patriots are out.)

The Yankees had the good fortune of going up against a Red Sox team managed by stumblebum Grady Little in the 2003 American League Championship Series. You'll recall Little inexplicably left Pedro Martinez in too long, Boston blowing a late-inning lead and eventually losing on an Aaron Boone walk-off homer. A game the Yankees won, but probably didn't deserve too.

The Patriots had the good fortune of going up against a San Diego Chargers team coached by fellow stumblebum Marty Schottenheimer two weeks ago. Schottenheimer gambled on fourth down instead of taking points, wasted timeouts on irreversible replay challenges, watched his undisciplined players unravel and totally bungled a fourth-quarter lead in falling victim to another Brady comeback. A game the Patriots won, but probably didn't deserve to.

Then there are the signature hustle plays that you'll remember long after your favorite player retires.

How about the ridiculous play Jeter made in Game 3 of the 2001 playoffs against the Oakland A's, the one where he runs all the way across the field into foul territory on the first-base line, then shovels an errant relay throw to get a non-sliding Jeremy Giambi out at the plate. The Yankees won that game 1-0 and went on to win the best-of-five series 3-2, becoming the first team to win a five-game series after losing the first two games at home. It should be noted that the Yankees went on to lose the World Series to Arizona in seven games that year, but it was a play for the ages nonetheless.

It reminds me of the incredible hustle play Patriot tight end Benjamin Watson made in last year's Divisional playoff game in Denver, when he sprinted the entire length of the field to tackle and keep Champ Bailey from scoring after a 100-yard interception return. It should be noted that the Patriots went on to lose that game to the Broncos, but another play for the ages nonetheless.

As if all these similarities weren't enough, I couldn't have been more reminded of the Yankees when watching the Patriots falter against the Colts. It was the 2004 ALCS encapsulated into four quarters of football.

Here, you had the Colts, with a chance to redeem themselves of past playoff failures. What better way to make it to the Super Bowl than by going through the Patriots to do it - the Patriots having already dashed Indy playoff hopes in two previous years, kind of how the Yankees had already crushed aspirations in Red Sox Nation quite a few times before 2004. What better way for the Red Sox to win a World Series, than to go through the Yankees?

Of course, things didn't start off to well for the Colts, or the Red Sox.

The tactical Patriots rolled out to a 21-3 lead, on the road, with Brady undefeated in dome stadiums. This game was over. On to Miami for the Patriots. Kind of like how the Yankees had their reservations for the World Series made after jumping out to a commanding 3-0 series lead over the Red Sox in that ALCS.

Asante Samuel's interception return for a touchdown to balloon the Patriot lead to 21-3 Sunday was like the 19-8 beatdown the Yankees administered on the Red Sox in Game 3 at Fenway Park. Disheartening, but apparently not crippling.

But the Colts showed signs of life just before the half when Vinatieri banged home a field goal to cut the lead to 21-6. The field goal was the Dave Roberts steal of second base in the bottom of the ninth in Game 4 that got the Red Sox headed in the right direction.

The Colts carried that momentum over into the second half and eventually pulled even, had to 'Cowboy Up' to weather a counter-punch by the Patriots and won the game with a late drive, making it the biggest comeback/choke in the history of the AFC Championship. Similarly, the Red Sox carried the momentum of a Game 4 victory over into the next two games, did their own 'Cowboy Up' act before pulling even in the series and eventually winning it in seven games, making it the biggest comeback/choke in Major League Baseball history.

The Red Sox got the collective monkeys off their backs that year and went on to win the World Series. Will Peyton Manning go on to win the Super Bowl? It remains to be seen.

One thing is for certain, there will be no ring again for the Patriots this year.

Hey, that's one more thing the Yanks and Pats have in common - you can't use the word 'dynasty' any more.

DANNY CRANDALL, belive it or not is a diehard Yankee fan and can be reached at 508-236-0395 or at dcrandall@thesunchronicle.com.