Mike Celizic

The Giants’ assignment looks simple enough: fly up to Buffalo, beat the Bills on Sunday, go to the playoffs. All they need is one win in their final two games, so they may as well get it against the mediocre Bills.

But the assignment comes with a P.S.: Don’t screw up. Because if they don’t win this battle of upstate and downstate New York, the Giants are going to go into the final week of the season, and the opponent isn’t going to be a pushover but the Patriots, the best team in the NFL. And all the Pats will be trying to do that week is finish off the first 16-0 regular season in NFL history.

And as delightful as such a match would be to football fans, who would get to see — if they have NFL Network — a game pitting a team trying for the playoffs against one trying for history, it’s not something the Giants want to face.

So the mandate is to beat Buffalo.

The problem, as anyone who’s faced a three-foot putt to win at Nassau knows, is that when you can’t screw up is inevitably when you do.

Plus, we’re talking about the Giants, who lost their first two games of the season, breezed through their next six, and are now staggering toward the finish line with a 3-3 record in their last six. As happened last year, when they collapsed down the stretch, quarterback Eli Manning seems to be getting worse instead of better as the year goes on. Plus, last week they lost their tight end, Jeremy Shockey to a broken leg.

If ever there were a team capable of blowing a must-win game against the Bills, who are playing for nothing but pride, it’s the Giants. On the other hand, if there’s a team that could beat the Patriots with everything on the line, it could also be the Giants.

They’d need a little help from the weather — slushy snow and gusting winds would even things up a great deal. But they have the pass rush that could give Tom Brady trouble, and if the weather were nasty, it could be a turnover-plagued, field-position game decided on luck and a last-second field goal. Maybe that’s asking a lot, but it would be a heckuva ending to the season.

I don’t wish any team ill in any sport. It’s not part of my job description. But I’ve got to be honest here: It would be delicious if the Giants could find a way to do what they have a special knack for and find a way to lose to the Bills. While I regret the agony it would cause New York fans, it’s outweighed by the desire to see the Patriots come into Week 17 needing to beat a team that is more desperate they are to win that game.

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That’s the way it ought to be, and there can’t be anyone outside of New England and New York who could want it any other way. If the Pats are going to go 16-0, you want them to earn it against a playoff-caliber team in an all-or-nothing, season-ending game.

The alternative, if the Giants beat the Bills, is the Pats facing an NFC team that doesn’t care about Miami’s place in history; they’ll have their own place in the playoffs to think about. They’ve already lost Shockey, why risk more injuries by pulling out all stops against New England? Let others say it’s their obligation to try their darnedest to stop the Pats’ perfect season. Their greater obligation is to their own playoff prospects.

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So, if the Giants beat the Bills, my guess is the Pats will have the following week’s game won sometime between pre-game warm-ups and the coin toss.

I suppose I have to mention that all of this depends on the Patriots finding a way to sneak past the Dolphins this week to run their record to 15-0. Lest we write off Miami, keep in mind that they’re hot and riding a season-high, one-game winning streak. Plus, they just hired Bill Parcells, who taught Pats’ coach Bill Belichick much of what he knows. And don’t forget, the Dolphins will be fighting for the honor of the franchise, whose 1972 team remains the only unbeaten champion in league history.

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Still, let’s assume — just for funsies — that New England beats Miami despite everything the Fish have going for them. This is not going to be a team the Giants — or any other team — is going to want to find standing between them and the playoffs.

It’s a team the Giants want to avoid even playing. Let the Patriots have their history. The Giants need the playoffs to keep from being labeled choking dogs. The time to get that job done is Sunday, in Buffalo.