So there it was. The holy grail of the NFL, the silver obelisk that 31 teams battled 63 preseason games, 256 regular-season games, and 11 playoff games to capture. The Vince Lombardi Trophy sat on an audio speaker set up on a makeshift stage in a Loews theater last week, as your faithful correspondent attended the media premiere of the Patriots’ championship-season video/DVD. Did I dare touch it?

Well, imagine if it were you, because when you think about it, I am you. I am, like most sports fans, someone who relishes being near greatness, whether it be in human or silver-plated form. Despite being old enough to be their father, I was excited to be in the presence of some of the marquee New England players who were part of the Tuesday-night event, including 24-year-old Tom Brady, Troy Brown, and Lawyer Milloy, among others. Was I professional about it? Sure. I was not going to stoop so low as to ask for autographs when I was representing the media in general and my organization in particular, but nobody said I couldn’t feel like a kid again and appreciate the moment. I could walk up to these sports heroes and shake their hands and say, "Congratulations." Nothing wrong with that. How many times in life does one get the chance to exchange pleasantries with a Super Bowl MVP? Probably those opportunities could be counted on one hand. Or finger. Or not.

So you shake hands with the guy who led your team to its first Super Bowl title, and the receiver/punt-returner extraordinaire who caught the 26-yard pass that got your team into field-goal range for the game-winner, and the defensive captain whose hard hits and lead-by-example passion spearheaded the unit that shut down the vaunted Rams. You do because you can, knowing that any other Patriots fan in the nation would be delighted to switch places with you for that one moment — for that opportunity to get close to a champion. So you act like the professional you are and offer up your congratulations, but deep inside, that youngster inside you is saying, "Thank you — for giving me, and the legion of Patriots fans that I at this moment represent, the thrill, pride, and unbridled joy that this improbable season has brought out in all of us."

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We can’t all watch this championship video on a 10-foot-high screen with state-of-the-art surround sound, but I’ve got to say that this environment is most favorable for viewing the season retrospective, which as of Thursday was the third-highest-selling DVD on Amazon.com. And I’m not talking just sports DVDs; I said DVDs, period, and according to USA Home Entertainment, the company that markets this NFL Films’ project, this product is already the top-selling sports video of all time, just three days after its release and with over 400,000 units produced. NFL Films is the best at putting together these kinds of packages, and the music, editing, and behind-the-scenes peeks go far beyond your run-of-the-mill highlight reel. For posterity’s sake, and the opportunity to relive this season over and over, you’ll want to pick up your copy. It includes a snippet of every regular-season Patriots game, plus in-depth looks at the playoff games, culminating with the you-know-what on February 3.

Complaints? Other than a couple of sloppy graphic miscues, my criticisms are mainly errors of omission. In the first category, game 13 is previewed as "New England at Cleveland," when it clearly takes place at Foxboro, and the final score of the final-regular-season game in Charlotte is posted as 20-6, when in fact the Pats whomped the Panthers, 38-6. And in the cheesy opening sequence, which included armored medieval warriors, I half expected to hear one knight exclaim, "’Tis only a flesh wound!"

Otherwise, I guess I just would have wanted the following distinctive, and in some ways season-turning, moments included in this video yearbook: 1) the Immaculate Reception redux by Troy Brown versus Atlanta; 2) the David Patten Unconscious (but in possession of the ball while out of bounds) Catch versus Buffalo; 3) Lonie Paxton’s snow angels in the end zone after the Raiders were beaten in the snow-globe game (and repeated as the confetti fell in New Orleans); and 4) acknowledgement that the Patriots asked to be announced as a team in the pre-game Super Bowl introductions. Among the myriad things I liked: 1) Patriots Nation’s own Gil Santos as the main play-by-play voice on the film, rather than FOX-TV’s moribund broadcast team ("Kneel!"); 2) the examples of taunting exhibited by the Jets, Raiders, Steelers, and Rams; 3) a clip of Brady in the tunnel before heading out to the Superdome field, pounding Drew Bledsoe’s shoulder pads as he gleefully crows, "I told you I’d get you back [to the Super Bowl]!"; 4) the spirals, the slo-mo, the stirring soundtrack, the U2 halftime show (on the DVD only), and particularly the ending, which never ceases to amaze. Twenty-two years later, you will believe in miracles again.

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So did I touch the trophy? Well, I figured if I wanted to touch the Stanley Cup, I’d have to wait for Ray Bourque to come out of retirement and bring it back again as a visiting player; if I wanted to touch the NBA’s O’Brien Trophy, I’d have to break into the Celtics’ trophy case, and even that one would have gathered quite a bit of dust; and if I wanted to touch the World Series trophy, well, [insert your joke here]. So there was the Vince — fingerprint-covered, but nonetheless gleaming and sterling, within my grasp. Did I touch it?

Damn right I did. I did it for all of you. And it felt great.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com