Football fans are getting ready for the Giants - Jets showdown on Saturday at Met Life Stadium in New Jersey. The game will likely decide which team makes it into the NFL playoffs, and which slinks off the local sports stage until next season.

Ankit Bajaj, who works in advertising, interrupted his workout at a gym in the Village to declare that he already knew which squad was tops.

"It's gotta' be the Giants," he said. "Because, I mean, it's the New York team we're talking about here. We're not talking about some team that came out of nowhere."

He was referring unkindly to the Jets, the team that personal trainer Jean Dennary roots for and predicts will win. "I feel like we're battle-tested over the past few years based on last year's playoff and the year before that," he said. "We're ready to go."

The two men debated statistics before Dennary broke out what he clearly believed was the clinching argument: You guys don't even have a chant. At least we have a chant. J-E-T-S. Jets! Jets! Jets!"

Bajaj countered, "We don't need no gimmicks. We play football."

Mike Zandman, owner of The Hill bar in Murray Hill, is making provisions to manage any animosity during the broadcast of tomorrow's game. He said Jets fans will be steered to the bar's upper level away from Giants fans, who will have the ground floor.

And though the game begins at 1 p.m. on the last shopping day before Christmas, Zandman is expecting to be jammed with fans from both sides, staring at flat screens and cheering their gladitorial surrogates.

"There may be a couple of girls who have to do last-minute shopping," he said. "I don't think there's any guys who are going to put shopping before this game."