FOR THE LOCALS, this week’s sports pages will be overrun by analyses, breakdowns, and predictions regarding Sunday’s AFC semifinal clash between the Colts and the Patriots. Even the other semi, between the Jets and the Steelers, holds more local interest than either of the NFC games. After all, most people feel that at least three of the four remaining AFC contenders could easily whoop any one of the NFC pretenders, and it’s possible — even likely — that two 8-8 squads from the regular season could hook up next Sunday to determine the Super Bowl representative from the NFC.

Well, the Colts-Patriots get-together will indeed be intriguing, but I’m going to let the other experts and pundits handle that tilt, at least for today. For me, I find the NFC contest between the Vikings and Eagles infinitely more fascinating. Why?

Because this game at Lincoln Financial Field pits two teams that have broad histories in the NFL as far as their, um, losing goes. Perhaps one might even utter the term "choking." Those epitaphs may seem a bit unfair, especially coming from a city that until recently hadn’t ever had a Super Bowl champ, was at 30 years and counting for a Stanley Cup, and hadn’t seen a baseball champ since before Prohibition.

But I’m not here to be mean-spirited about it; I’m just going to point out that the histories of the Eagles and the Vikings are quite interesting, and the survivor in this captivating contest could very well move on to the Super Bowl to forever dismiss the demons that have dominated their franchises.

Lately it seems that the Eagles have always been good, but that’s not necessarily been the case — even though they’ve qualified for the playoffs each year since the calendar rolled over into the 2000s. Since 2000, Philly has had five consecutive 11-win (or more) seasons, and has been to three straight NFC title games. QB Donovan McNabb, who was booed on Draft Day 1999 when the Eagles drafted him with their top pick, has been mercurial and unquestionably responsible for the team’s recent turnaround.

But Philly fans are still bitter, not only because their lone Super Bowl appearance resulted in a blowout loss to the Raiders (in Supe XV in 1981), but because that season also marked the last Eagle post-season win for the next 12 years. That was a lo-o-ong trudge through the wilderness, and McNabb’s arrival returned some of the luster to the Eagles’ efforts after after six-, three-, and five-win seasons to cap the late ’90s.

But just because the team returned to its glory days doesn’t mean it hasn’t continued to torture its fans. Because despite those three NFC championship-game berths, the Eagles managed to drop all three — the last two at home — and still have just that one Big-Game appearance in XXXVIII Super Bowls played. Heck, even the Titans, Bucs, Falcons, and Panthers can say that, and they don’t have nearly the prolific league history that the Eagles franchise does (three NFL titles, in 1948, ’49, and ’60).

But then one has to ponder the "better-to-have-loved-and-lost-than-never-to-have-loved-at-all" theory as it pertains to the Eagles’ opponent this Sunday, the Vikings. The Vikes have been to four Super Bowls, including four of the first 11 played, and have lost them all. The Vikings of the ’70s were a feared and ferocious bunch, with the Purple People Eater defense and the inimitable Bud Grant coaching, and the team only missed the playoffs twice in that entire decade. Yet they never won the big one, losing Super Bowl IV to KC, losing back-to-backers to the Dolphins and Steelers in ’73 and ’74, and then falling to the Raiders in ’76.

They haven’t been back since, although they barreled through the 1998 regular season in winning 15 of 16 and hosted the NFC title game at the Metrodome against the seemingly overwhelmed, pre–Mike Vick Falcons. In a game that turned out tougher than ever imagined, the Vikings blew a 20-7 first-half lead, but still had kicker Gary Anderson — who hadn’t missed a field goal all year — set to kick the game-clincher from 38 yards with two minutes left in the game. Alas, he missed left by half-a-foot, and the Falcons proceeded to launch the game-tying drive immediately thereafter, and ultimately won it in OT, 30-27.

Vikings fans, like Eagles fans, have regularly been put through the wringer; who can forget the 41-0 loss to the Giants in the 2000 NFC title game? How about jumping out to a 6-0 start last season, only to lose seven of the last 10, including a potential playoff-berth clincher in Arizona that was snuffed out on a Cardinal circus catch in the end zone on the last play of the game? Heck, what about this year, when a 5-1 start faded to an 8-8 finish, with the Vikes’ season-ending loss at Washington — again, a game that could have locked up a playoff spot — seemingly marking another spectacular collapse?

Luckily for Minnesota, the Panthers also lost that day, and the Vikes got into the post-season through the back door. Amazingly, Sunday saw the Vikings become the second 8-8 team in two days to ever win a playoff game, and therefore they will match wits with the Eagles this coming weekend.

The Eagles’ season to this point is downright impressive, as the team rolled to a 13-1 start and clinched the division in November; while resting players in the regular season’s two meaningless finales, the Eagles lost to the Rams and Bengals and enter the playoffs without tasting victory since December 19.

Two lovable losers with a monkey the size of King Kong riding their backs. Who will emerge victorious to advance to the NFC championship game? And can they win that one as well?

History awaits, and it ain’t likely to be pretty for either one, if the past is any indicator.

Sporting Eye appears every Monday and Friday at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com