I do New York Times Sunday crosswords. Only. If that sounds arrogant, given how difficult those monsters are, I plead guilty.

But I also readily concede that I solve one — and “solving” a crossword puzzle means 100 percent accuracy — about once out of 20 puzzles. All it takes is one wrong letter … and you have failed.

A Sunday puzzle I worked on the other day came down to one letter. I was that close to winning.

The final letter involved two clues. And one of them was: “Forerunner of baseball.” Seven letters.

I guessed … and I was wrong. But I discovered an interesting notion about a sport played in Britain which may have led to cricket as well as baseball.

Tip-a-cat.

No, really.

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I saw the Super Bowl approximately 19 hours later than did the bulk of NFL fans. On tape, of course.

(Kickoff was 12:30 a.m. in Europe; I was in a Barcelona hotel, heavily jet lagged. I woke at 5 a.m., after sleeping right through the game.)

Probably not much original left to say about the game, then, and I certainly am not going to peruse the mountains of verbiage filed on the proceedings in Houston.

I have one issue to raise, and perhaps it has not been beaten to death.

The NFL’s overtime possession rules are a travesty. And it took an otherwise memorable Super Bowl to hammer that home.

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Is Landon Donovan’s playing career over?

It may be, and not necessarily because he prefers it that way.

First, the LA Galaxy in December said Donovan had retired — after the club could not come to terms with him.

Donovan remained quiet, however, and then came a reported offer from Real Salt Lake. That alleged deal was on the verge of happening, or so we heard, for weeks … until it broke down late last month, according to Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated.

The lack of followup on that cryptic bit of news (not sourced but from a reliable journalist), from Utah publications to the wider internet, seems to suggest a lack of interest among journalists on how the deal broke down — as well as what might be next for the greatest scorer in Major League Soccer and U.S. National Team history.

Which is a bit alarming, too, for those who hoped to see Donovan continue his career into his age 35 season.

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Over the previous seven days I posted a preview and six on-the-road reports from a 2,431-mile drive across the continent on Interstate 10, from Ontario to Jacksonville, site of the 2005 Super Bowl.

Some thoughts, after retyping on this blog those newspaper submissions from 12 years ago.

–We did another drive on Saturday, the day before the game, going up to Savannah, in Georgia. Loved the city, and thought of my grandmother, a native of the city. Taking that extra drive after six days behind the wheel … seems excessive.

I have no idea what sort of car we drove. It was a rental, of course, and it gave us no problems, but other than that … I sometimes get attached to rentals. No, really.

–We tended to stay in places with a free breakfast, and we would load up for the drive and try to bang out most of our daily miles before lunch.

–I remember the road trip far more clearly than the game. It ended New England Patriots 24, Philadelphia Eagles 21 but it was not as interesting as the score suggests. The Eagles scored late and never got the ball back. I never really got into the game, perhaps because I wasn’t in Jacksonville for the buildup.

It was New England’s third championship in four years, and 12 years later the Patriots are going for their fifth in 16 years. It is amazing that Bill Belichick and Tom Brady have been there for all of it.

–The submission about New Orleans came less than seven months before Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the city and its environs.

In the piece, I advocated that the Super Bowl should be played more often in New Orleans, but the city was in no condition to host the event for years after Katrina. One factor was damage done to the Superdome; the NFL Saints played their home games out of town in 2005, while the stadium was being refurbished.

Also, the nice, big houses we saw along the coast, in Gulfport, etc., were mostly destroyed. It was sobering to think of them, after the hurricane hit the area.

New Orleans got its 10th Super Bowl in 2013: Baltimore 34, San Francisco 31. Safe to say the city has bounced back from Katrina.

–In 2005, walking over the bridge from El Paso to Ciudad Juarez might make an American think twice. Even then, we didn’t go over the border to the Mexican city until we had arranged for an American cabbie to take us over and wait for us until we were ready to go back.

Twelve years later, things have deteriorated, and typical counsel is to stay on the U.S. side of the border, and I wonder how much damage that did to the guys at the central market.

–We made the drive despite my daughter not bringing her driver’s license. We found out about this when she was pulled over for speeding in Texas. I drove the rest of the way, about a thousand miles in 2.5 days. Doubt I could do that now … but I did something similar in March of 2005, which I may get around to soon.

Day 7 of the series and Leg 6 of the Interstate 10 road trip to the 2005 Super Bowl, 163 miles from Tallahassee, Fla., to Jacksonville — part of the 2,431 miles across Interstate 10 from Ontario, Calif., to Jacksonville.

From February 5, 2005

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — We knew we had arrived when we whizzed under the small sign.

“END 10, 1 MILE”.

That was our cue. We were at Super City 2005. Finally.

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Day 6 of the series and Leg 5 of the Interstate 10 road trip to 2005 Super Bowl, 383 miles from New Orleans to Tallahassee, Fla., part of the 2,431 miles across Interstate 10 from Ontario, Calif., to Jacksonville, Fla.

From February 4, 2005

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — We Left Coast natives tend to view Florida through the prism of multicultural Miami or sprawling Orlando. Modern. Forward-thinking. Diverse.

Not necessarily. Certainly not in Florida’s panhandle, which we traversed Thursday on Leg 5 of the Road to the Super Bowl.

This is the part of Florida unknown to much of the world. Along Interstate 10, from Pensacola to Tallahassee is one long pine-forested, twangy, rifle-racked, grits-‘n’-hushpuppies stretch of unreconstructed Dixie.

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Day 5 of the series and Leg 4 of the road trip to the 2005 Super Bowl, 543 miles from San Antonio to New Orleans — part of the 2,431 miles across Interstate 10 from Ontario, Calif., to Jacksonville.

From February 3, 2005

NEW ORLEANS — The party is already here.

How come the Super Bowl is not?

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Day 4 of the series and Leg 3 of the road trip to the 2005 Super Bowl, 558 miles from El Paso to San Antonio, part of the 2,431 miles across Interstate 10 from Ontario, Calif., to Jacksonville, Fla.

From February 2, 2005

SAN ANTONIO — Texas is ridiculous. Almost any way you want to cut it.

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Day 3 of the series and Leg 2 of the road trip to the 2005 Super Bowl, 434 miles from Phoenix to El Paso, Texas, Jacksonville — part of the 2,431 miles across Interstate 10 from Ontario, Calif., to Jacksonville.

(The following report came before Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, became globally notorious for drug gangs — and something of a “no-go” area for American tourists.)

From February 1, 2005

EL PASO, Texas — Raul Gonzalez is not the sort of salesman who gives up easily. He is Mexican, he hustles jewelry in the crowded warrens of the Ciudad Juarez central market and he deals with U.S. tourists who have just crossed the border with Texas. Normally, he is as tenacious as gum on a huarache sandal.

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Day 2 of the series and Leg 1 of the road trip to the 2005 Super Bowl, 350 miles from Ontario, Calif., to Phoenix, part of the 2,431 miles from Ontario to Jacksonville, Fla.

From January 31, 2005

PHOENIX — The grizzled little man named “Mac” handles bets while sitting on a stool in an alcove of the Quartzsite Yacht Club Bar & Grill.

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