Like a lot of football fans in the Twin Tiers, I was rooting hard for the New England Patriots to lose on Sunday.

But of course they won.

The stinkin’ Patriots are in the Super Bowl. Again.

I’m a big, big Steelers fan. At the same time, I’d like to see the Buffalo Bills get better and be more of a factor in the AFC because I think it would be good for Western New York — and not least because I think it would be good for the newspapers I work for.

I believe that the success of a region’s NFL team is good for the entertainment-related economy — and just for the region’s overall morale. We feel good when our teams win; we get excited over playoff runs. I would welcome seeing the Bills climb back to being even close to what they were in the early 1990s when they went to four straight Super Bowls.

So the Patriots’ seemingly endless success is a double-whammy for me: They have kept my beloved Steelers out of more than one Super Bowl the past two decades, and they have owned the Bills and the AFC East division for the same amount of time.

I truly hate the Pats’ success. But, as hard as it is to admit, I respect it.

The greatest team in the Super Bowl era is still the 1970s Steelers. They won four Super Bowls in six years and no other team has matched that feat. But that Steelers team was also built and kept together in an era before the salary cap and the free-agency system of today — it would have been much harder to do what the Steelers did in the ’70s in the 2000s.

And that is why I have such grudging admiration for what the Patriots have done. Their success has been more long-term, with far greater turnover than that one Steelers team. The Patriots’ Super Bowl wins are spread out over a longer period — I do not believe any of their respective teams over the years qualify for the sports label of “dynasty” — but the franchise’s consistency has been remarkable.

Much of the credit, of course, goes to head coach Bill Belichick. He runs a program that is perfect for the salary-cap age, scheming to get the most out of hidden-gem talent, adjusting quickly to what his team’s abilities are, exploiting the opponents’ weaknesses and insisting that the team-first concept rules above all other elements in the locker room.

Is Belichick the greatest NFL head coach of all time? He probably deserves that title because of the incredibly consistent program he has developed — after some missteps earlier in his head coaching career — for running a team.

But we may never truly know if Belichick is the greatest coach in NFL history because of one player: quarterback Tom Brady. As great as Belichick and his staff have been, much of it could have been for naught without the presence of No. 12, who at age 41 refuses to go away.

Certainly, Belichick is credited with adhering to the bedrock philosophy of always protecting Brady with good offensive lines and the quick-passing game, relying more on tight ends, jitterbug slot receivers and versatile running backs over the diva, deep-threat wideouts. Getting the ball out fast to keep the QB from getting hit has helped lengthen Brady’s incredible career, and his unerring accuracy (most of the time) makes the Patriots’ offense — and team — go.

Belichick is supposedly a defensive guru, earning his coaching stripes as defensive coordinator with Super Bowl-winning New York Giants’ teams under Bill Parcells. But Belichick’s defenses have been giving up a lot of points in recent seasons. It’s his Brady-led offense that has driven the team’s continued success.

Is Belichick the greatest NFL coach of all time, or does his success coincide inseparably from having unquestionably the greatest QB of all time? Again, we might never know, because we might not see Belichick coach long enough without Brady calling the signals for the question to be settled.

Tom Brady has tortured NFL fans in the Twin Tiers for nearly 20 years, and we’ll see his mocking smirk yet again this coming Super Bowl week.

But as the late Stuart Scott of ESPN used to quip, “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”

I truly hate still having to watch Brady’s game — and I truly hate having to admit its greatness.

(Jim Eckstrom is executive editor of the Olean Times Herald and Bradford Publishing Co. His email is jeckstrom@oleantimesherald.com.)