I hate ties. OK, maybe tie-goes-to-the-runner is all right and tied shoelaces are a must, but I hate all other ties, from the ones you knot around your neck to the ones that occasionally pop up in sports, dangling there like perpetually uncompleted thoughts. I must make an exception, though, and advocate a tie in this NFL year wrapping up its regular season Sunday.

Quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers of the Packers and Drew Brees of the Saints must share the league’s MVP award. Picking either would be a crime to the other.

Shared MVPs are properly a rarity. Only twice has it happened in the 55 years The Associated Press has doled out the award: 1997 (Brett Favre/Barry Sanders) and 2003 (Peyton Manning/Steve McNair).

This year, though, Rodgers’ and Brees’ teams are a combined 26-4 and steaming (apparently) head-on toward the NFC Championship Game. Rodgers has a league-leading 45 TD passes and is on pace (122.5) for the best season passer rating in history. Brees has 41 touchdowns and just broke Dan Marino’s 27-year-old season yardage record (albeit needing 58 more passes to reach 5,087 yards than Danny Boy required to reach 5,084).

Patriot Tom Brady’s numbers arguably are MVP-worthy, too, but not this year, not next to Rodgers and Brees. And no running back has had so lofty a season as to merit consideration. (QBs and RBs have glommed 95 percent of the trophies. Only other positions to win were defensive tackle Alan Page in 1971, kicker Mark Moseley in ’82 and linebacker Lawrence Taylor in ’86).

So 2011 is the year. Let’s help give the forlorn tie a good name, shall we? Make it Rodgers and Brees as co-MVPs.

Scatter-shooting the league:

• Playoff update: Simple in the NFC. Packers, 49ers, Saints, Falcons and Lions are in, and Cowboys at Giants on Sunday night is winner-take-all for the final spot. Less simple in the AFC, with Patriots, Texans, Ravens and Steelers in, but five teams alive for the last two spots. Broncos and Bengals enjoy win-and-in control. One of them must lose for Raiders, Titans or Jets to have any shot.

• With Marino’s yardage record in his pocket, Brees has two other season records in sight: Most completions, 450 by Peyton Manning set last season, and his own completion-percentage mark of 70.62 set in ’09. Brees’ current totals are 440 and 70.74.

• OT Jake Long and WR Brandon Marshall making the Pro Bowl team marked only the second time since 1995 Miami has had two offensive players voted in. Other was 2008, with Long and RB Ronnie Brown.

• Colts are a 1-3 betting favorite to Rams’ 2-1 to win the Suck For Luck Sweepstakes, with both teams 2-13 and Indy owning tiebreaker. Colts might be a good bet, though — much more likely to beat Jacksonville than St. Louis is to beat San Fran.

• Ravens’ Ricky Williams needs 19 rushing yards Sunday to become 26th man with 10,000 for his career. In battle of ex-Dolphins, Williams has 499 scrimmage yards this season to only 122 for Eagles’ Brown.

• This will be 16th consecutive season with at least five playoff teams that didn’t make the postseason the year before.

• NFL’s 44.15 points per game average entering Week 17 is league’s highest since 1965’s final 46.12.

• Panthers’ Cam Newton is second QB to top 20/10 in TDs passing and rushing in a season, after Kordell Stewart in 1997.

• Kicker David Akers of the 49ers enters the finale with 156 points. Season record for a kicker is 164 by Gary Anderson in 1998.

• Saints safety Roman Harper, with 7 1/2 sacks, needs one Sunday to set the record for most in a season by a defensive back.

• If anybody cares, NFC beat AFC in interconference games this year, 33-31, the National’s first outright win since 1995.