Editor's note: With the New England Patriots and Oakland Raiders meeting in ESPN's Sunday night contest (8:30 ET) for the first time since January's controversial playoff game, we asked ESPN NFL analyst and former Raider Eric Allen to reflect on that evening.

It's obvious it is still an exciting play that fans in the football community view as one of those great moments. As soon as the Chicago play (overturned interception in the closing moments against New England last Sunday) happened, they went back and revisited the play against the Raiders. For the first time in six or seven months, I had the misfortune of revisiting the play and saying, "What if?"

	Rich Gannon and the Raiders would have won the game if it wasn't for the "tuck rule."

That was the first time in a long time I was put in the position of reviewing that play. It seemed like I was put back on the field. The clip I saw actually showed me running across the screen and all the emotion of just that one single play. In my 14-year career, there have been all types of plays that I have made and that were made against us, but because that was the last (game) of my career, that play stands out more than any other.

It's 1:43 to play, we stop them with a great play, a great call. We blitz Charles Woodson from the trip side. It was just a great call and it all worked out right. So you're on the mountain top. You think about the plane ride out there. It's a night playoff game, we had to stay in New England a couple of extra days. The whole fan situation, the field (covered with snow). We're able to overcome all of that. And we won the ball game. We did what we had to do to win the ball game.

You start to think "we're back in the AFC championship game. We lost it last year, but this is our chance to win the Super Bowl." You're as high as you can get and then three or five minutes later, you understand that what you did wasn't right. It wasn't wrong, but it wasn't right and now you have to go back on the field.

The valley that I was on personally, and I guess the rest of the team as well, was like what can you do? You're in shock and it's a low that's difficult to come back from. It's hard to get that adrenaline back in you because you have laid it all on the line. You laid it out there, did what you were supposed to do and got the ball back for your offense. And all of a sudden, you're back on the field again. It's hard to get recharged. It's hard to get focused again because you're trying to understand what the refs are talking about. "What do you mean a tuck rule? What is that?" So you're trying to go over this and make sense of it.

Meanwhile, New England has gotten a second shot of adrenaline. The Pats got another chance. They have the momentum now. When the momentum changes, it's hard to get it back.

I came to the realization after this happened that some weird things have happened to me in the playoffs. That same day, the Eagles played the Bears in the playoffs and my first playoff game was the Fog Bowl (playoff game between Chicago and Philadelphia after 1988 season). I gave everything I had in my 14-year career, but I started thinking, 'maybe I'm one of those guys who's just not going to win a championship.'

(This Sunday in Oakland), I think some of the players who were there, especially many of those on defense, think of this game, not necessarily as payback, but a chance to show they were the better team and it took some outside forces for New England to win.

Defensively, they have some new guys -- Rod Woodson, John Parrella, Napoleon Harris, Bill Romanowski -- and these guys weren't a part of that game. A lot of it will be hearsay. But a lot of the mentality will simply be about wanting to win the ball game because both teams are good and they're both fighting for a playoff spot.

ESPN.com analyst Eric Allen played 14 seasons in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles, New Orleans Saints and Oakland Raiders.