Perhaps no ankle, other than Lady Godiva's, has created so much of a stir as New England Patriot tight end Rob Gronkowski's has.

I feel as though I have come to know Gronk's ankle personally and will miss it when the Super Bowl ends late Sunday night.

About the only other part of the body that has received more attention these days is Peyton Manning's neck and the on-air diagnosis of that will continue long after the Super Bowl until one of the great quarterbacks of our time either parts ways with the Colts or terrorizes his current team until they think they see bolts locked into that famous neck like Frankenstein's monster.

What does all this have to do with anything? Nothing, really, just some football ramblings three days before the big game that honestly I'm having a hard time picking because it could go either way.

I did a Google search of famous ankles and came up with two that interested me, one an ESPN blog from last February and another about a woman named Betty the Blackmailer who in her 1919 trial had her ankles shielded from the jury.

I kind of wish Gronk's ankle was shielded from everyone's ears and eyes these days because amongst the enlightened broadcasters at ESPN radio the talk has become more tedious than the talk of Tim Tebow, although they still manage to work Tebow's name into a segment now and then. Maybe that's because you can't Tebow, used as a verb here, on a bad ankle.

All this rambling is being done to delay my inevitable annual pick of this season's NFL champion.

Last year I did it using one of my favorite trivia books, The Name Game by Michael Leo Donovan and the book failed me because it picked the Steelers although I was rooting for the Packers.

This year I think the book would pick the Patriots hands down because it's pretty clear that New England's name from a historical perspective is better than the Giants.

The book, however, doesn't take into account the ankle heard 'round the world, an ankle that just may have stolen all the fame from Betty Grable because in order for the lovely Miss Grable to have those lovely legs she needed lovely ankles to support them.

Imagine back in the day if Miss Grable had sustained a high ankle sprain tripping the light fantastic. Walter Winchell would have broadcast it constantly, Warner Brothers would have parodied it in cartoons and World War II bomber pilots would have had to find another pinup to put on the nose of their planes, unless they painted an Ace bandage on her bad ankle.

That's why it pains me to do this, to pick the Giants, because as a card carrying member of the Washington Redskins fan club, I cannot and will not root for them. However, the New York Football Giants have carried me to a 7-3 record in for fun only playoff picks this season.

My football sense says this will be a close game and it also says I must pick the NYFG to take it all because the neck monster's brother Eli has been on fire and that receiving corps they have has taken them this far in the playoffs.

Foregoing all of Eli's whining about him being an elite quarterback and the fact true fans of the NFC East can't root for one another, there's no rule that says in predictions you can't pick your rival so that's what I'm doing, picking the NYFG in a close one and all the while rooting with all my might for Tom Brady and that ubiquitous ankle, that somehow the Gronk can hobble into the end zone and win one for the Patriots. Of course, then, one day when Gronk retires and he is enshrined in Canton, you won't see his bust, but that ankle, along with Peyton's multimillion dollar neck — Lance Martin