Colts Gave Jets Life, Now Jets Can Knock Them Out

The people who run the Colts are of the pragmatic sort, as they wanted to make clear to all of us. They present themselves as singularly focused, unimpressed by the kind of whimsical motivations (perfection, especially once it's within your grasp, for example) that might appeal to the rest of us. So it's a pretty good bet they're not big believers in karma, which is good. Because if they were, the Colts would be stone-cold terrified that the Jets are their AFC Championship Game opponent.

The Jets, you'll no doubt recall, are only in the playoffs because the Colts thought it was so important that everybody know how trivial they considered a pursuit of perfection. By pulling Peyton Manning and other key starters just after halftime in Week 16, then-unbeaten Indy cleared a path for the Jets to win a game they needed to win in order to keep their playoff hopes alive. The Jets accepted the gift, haven't lost since and now arrive on the Colts' doorstep as the sole remaining obstacle to Indianapolis' second Super Bowl appearance in four years.

"This is a perfect script for us, man," Jets lineman Damien Woody said Monday. "Everybody talking about how they laid down for us and all that stuff, now we have a second opportunity against the Colts at their place again. This could be a redemption factor for us. The guys are pumped up, psyched."

To the Jets' credit, they haven't been wearing out the "nobody respects us" drum, even though they really could. There's not a football-watching soul on the planet who thinks the Jets would have made the playoffs if the Colts had kept their starters in that Week 16 game. There are even those who thought the Bengals rolled over for the Jets in Week 17, though it's now clear that Cincinnati was a shredded shell of its first-half self and not as good a team as New York was by that point.

But the Jets have obviously been paying some degree of attention to the chatter that has accompanied their surprise run to the NFL's final four, and while they can claim it doesn't matter to them, there are some sectors of the organization that obviously don't love the perception that they backed into or were handed their playoff spot.

"Everybody says Peyton didn't play the whole game and stuff like that, but it was a competitive game," Woody said. "But there's no more excuses now, because everybody's going to have their top guns out there playing. This is an opportunity for us to show who the better team is, and we're going to embrace this opportunity."

Look, the Colts may roll the Jets Sunday. They have yet to lose a game they were trying to win, and they throttled the run-and-play-defense Ravens on Saturday night in their divisional-round game. The Jets were able to hold down the Chargers, but the Colts have even more passing game weapons, as well as championship experience and confidence. It may well be that the Jets can go no further than they've already gone.

But the Jets don't believe that, and in some ways they're the Colts' worst nightmare. The Colts gave the Jets life, effectively handing them the game that put them into the playoffs. And now, not only are the Jets alive, they're of the belief that they can beat anybody. They even believe they could have beaten the Colts straight-up in Week 16, and there's no real evidence to prove them wrong.

"We did win that game by 14 points," Jets coach Rex Ryan said. "We played well. Granted, it was the Colt JV team or whatever you want to call it, but they still had the Colt uniform on. We'll never know what would have happened."

What we do know is that the Jets are now in position, with one more upset, to derail the Colts' pursuit of the Super Bowl title they deemed important enough to kiss off history. And that while Cinderella teams are often just happy to reach this point, the Cinderella the Colts are playing Sunday has added motivation to beat them. And if that motivation swings this game, then the Colts will have been beaten by a monster they themselves created.