Here are my post-Super Bowl thoughts, rants and rumbles, while I’m still picking myself off the ground from the Giants’ shocking 17-14 victory.

Plaxico Burress was wrong on his Super Bowl prediction. Oh, he picked the winning team correctly. He just gave the Patriots too much credit saying they would score 17 points.

The Giants truly pulled an upset for the ages. This was one physically and mentally tough team. One of the best sights wasn’t Tom Coughlin getting drenched with Gatorade (the Gatorade was clear, by the way, for anyone sick enough to have bet a prop on the color of the Gatorade), but of Bill Belichick running off the field a loser.

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Maybe Belichick can recoup some of the money he lost to the league for “Spygate” by going into the clothing business selling hoods with the Unabomber.

Sorry Giants fans but I think this is a legitimate question. Could the Giants go from Super Bowl champions to being last in the NFC East next season? Dallas, Philadelphia and Washington are all strong competition.

Nevada sportsbooks lost $2.6 million on the Super bowl. The hotels had won the past 12 years on the game, according to figures researched by the state Gaming Control Board. Not this time, though.

“You have one of these (losses for the books) every 10 years or so,” said Mike Seba, senior linesmaker for Las Vegas Sports Consultants. “It happens when a double-digit favorite doesn’t win straight-up. People are going to play the ‘dog on the money line.

“If you take away the money line wagers (on the Giants) it’s a break even game (for the house).”

Nevada books really had to lose big on the game when you consider that future book profits are wrapped into Super Bowl figures. Know anybody who bet the Giants early in the season to win the Super Bowl? I sure don’t.

Bookmakers were able to knock down New England future book tickets and a one-sided action prop on the Patriots completing an undefeated season.

Offshore books fared better on the Super Bowl than Nevada casinos. Several sources told me CRIS and WSEX were among the online books to not only win, but score a decent profit on the game.

“The offshores wouldn’t get the kind of Giants money line bets that Vegas would,” said one gaming analyst. “Tourists coming to Vegas weren’t the big betting type. Some probably hadn’t bet a game all year. But they wanted to have a rooting interest and they didn’t want to have to root for the Patriots.”

As great as the Patriots were – setting an NFL record for points in a season – they were far from lovable thanks to Belichick or “Belicheat” as some call him. Belichick was nailed cheating in “Spygate,” was disgustingly disingenuous on injury reports and had no qualms about running scores up on class coaches Joe Gibbs and Dick Jauron.

All this ended up biting Vegas bookmakers because the public didn’t want to pull for this coach and team. It was an unusual Super Bowl because the wiseguys were on the favorite, while the public backed the underdog. Normally sharp money outweighs square money – except when it comes to the Super Bowl.

“The value was with the Patriots on the money line,” Seba said.

Jay Kornegay, sports book director at the Las Vegas Hilton, told me he never had a team that bit the books worse in a year than the Patriots. He said the books lost nearly every week on the Patriots – early in the season when they were covering and later when they weren’t. So maybe it’s fitting the Patriots hurt the books once again.

Now that football has ended, there’s always the chance some offshore sportsbooks could fold without paying. Bettors have been on alert about this development since 2001 when Aces Gold folded following the Patriots upset win against the Rams. Supposedly Aces Gold stiffed bettors out of millions.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if some books closed,” said one offshore industry expert. “Not necessarily because of a Super Bowl loss, but because of the climate. Legislation has made banking more difficult and the books have far less working capital than before.

“Bookmakers are bookmakers. They aren’t prudent businessmen. It’s a dead period now, but it will pick up during March Madness. If they can hang on until then, they should be OK until baseball comes. That’s when the biggest dead period will hit.”