When was the last time you asked Santa for a New York Jets win? As hard as it is to believe, that's what it has come down to for New England Patriots fans this weekend.

On Sunday, the Pats reminded everyone they could be a formidable playoff opponent with a dominating 47-7 victory over playoff-bound Arizona at snowy Gillette Stadium. This was no fluke win in a blizzard. There was no snowplow-aided kick to win the game, no Tuck Rule controversy to overshadow the effort of the home team. This was straight-ahead, smash-mouth football as the Pats took the drama out of the game early.

"I thought our players played with good toughness," Coach Bill Belichick said after the game.

That's about as ebullient as Coach Bill gets after a win, and he had plenty of reason to be ecstatic with his team's effort. The scoreboard told the story, as did the stats. The Pats gained 514 total yards to the Cardinals' 186, dominated time of possession 38:35 to 21:25 and picked up 27 first downs to Arizona's eight.

For all that, we now find ourselves cheering for a nemesis; cheering for a New York team that was embarrassed by the Seahawks, who had won only three games before pounding the Jets 13-3 in the Seattle snow; a Jets team that has lost three of four games in the past month after moving to the threshold of a playoff spot.

We ultimately might look back at this season and realize it was a coin toss that kept the Patriots out of the playoffs. That's what gave the Jets the ball to start overtime against the Pats back on Nov. 13. Brett Favre drove the Jets into field-goal range, and Jay Feely's 34-yarder gave New York a 34-31 win.

Favre hasn't done much since. He has thrown one touchdown pass and six interceptions during the 1-3 slide, including an 18-for-31, two-interception stinker on Sunday.

Now, we have to cheer for Favre to summon his greatness one more time. We have to cheer for him and the Jets to stop Chad Pennington, who's trying to return to East Rutherford, N.J., and prove the entire Jets front office wrong.

The Pats need to take care of business with a win at Buffalo and could still get into the playoffs as a wild card, of course. But rooting for Baltimore to lose to a 5-10 Jacksonville team seems like a waste of time. Instead, we'll be cheering for Belichick's "old friend," Eric Mangini, to lead New York to a victory.

"We understand that we kind of made our own bed and we have to lie in it now," Patriots running back Sammy Morris said after Sunday's win. "Again, at the same time, we're not out of it. That's all we can do. We have to focus on what we have to do."

That's easy for him to say. The problem is the rest of us will have to split our focus Sunday. Cheering for the Pats is one thing; cheering for a New York team won't come easily.

There is a little good news, however: We still get to cheer against Bill Parcells. The Pats need his Dolphins to lose to the Jets if they want to win the AFC East once again.

Tom Caron is the studio host for Red Sox broadcasts on the New England Sports Network. His column appears in the Press Herald on Tuesdays.