Past Matchups Won't Matter on NFL's Championship Sunday

Throw them out. Throw them all out, the regular-season games between the Packers and Bears (two), and the Jets and Steelers (one).

For when those rematches are played next Sunday for the right to go to the Super Bowl, the regular-season meetings mean nothing. The 49-point turnaround in the Jets-Patriots matchup this weekend (Pats, 45-3 in Foxborough on Dec. 6; Jets, 28-21 Sunday in the same venue) tells us all we need to know. And if you read anything in the coming days, like the note that Devin Hester's 62-yard punt return overcame a Green Bay edge from scrimmage in the first Green Bay-Chicago meeting, ignore it.

None of it matters.

Nor does home-field "advantage'' -- the Steelers have been in seven AFC title games in the past 17 seasons, six at home and one on the road. The home team is 2-5.

Green Bay and Pittsburgh are each favored by three points going into the title games, the Packers as a road favorite. That essentially means that the Vegas guys think of Green Bay as six points better, since Chicago gets three points as the home team.

More from NFL.com That's based, of course, on the Packers' 48-21 demolition of Atlanta in the Georgia Dome Saturday night, not the two games the teams played -- a 20-17 win by the Bears in Chicago and a 10-3 win by the Packers at Lambeau, in a game the Bears had little incentive to win. In this case, it's recent perception -- and the perception is that a Green Bay team that was just 10-6 in the regular season and had to win two "playoff'' games to end the regular season, now is the best team in the NFL.

That's also the perception of the media and fans. Mike Ditka said on ESPN Sunday, in the hyperbole of the moment, that Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers played the best game ever played under pressure by a quarterback on Saturday night. Well, 31 of 36 for 366 yards and three touchdowns can mesmerize anyone, including a Hall-of-Fame tight end and Super Bowl-winning coach (who, in a later incarnation, gave up New Orleans' entire 1999 draft for Ricky Williams).

But that doesn't mean that Rodgers will do it again Sunday at Soldier Field in REAL weather, not the artificial kind.

The other thing that gives the Packers credibility is that they demolished a 13-3 Atlanta team, the top seed in the conference and one that had been invincible at home.

Maybe that speaks to the mediocrity and unpredictability of the NFL this season -- the Patriots were 14-2, the top seed in the AFC despite starting four and five rookies at different times, not normally a formula for that kind of success, even with a quarterback like Tom Brady. The difference: the Jets put pressure on Brady with five sacks. The Pats got no sacks against Mark Sanchez, emulating a very important game an UNBEATEN New England team played three years ago against the other New York team, one with six losses. Same result.

Moreover, the unexpected always happens too, like the botched fake punt on the ball dropped by Patrick Chung, which now is being reported was called by ... Patrick Chung, not Bill Belichick. So the Jets went off at halftime with a 14-3 lead, instead of just 7-3.

The unexpected will happen against next week.

An impressionistic look at the two games.

AFC Title Game: Jets at Steelers

Pittsburgh is 2-4 since 1994 in championship games played at home -- 1994, 1995, 1998, 2002, 2005 and 2009. This is 2011 so what happened then doesn't matter. None of the Steelers were around for the first three games and barely any in 2002 (Hines Ward).

Mark Sanchez

When the Jets beat the Steelers 22-17 on Dec. 19, Pittsburgh was without Troy Polamalu, one of two or three players in the NFL whose presence and absence is worth points -- in some cases, maybe a touchdown. We were going to throw out that game anyway, so let's do it, even though Polamalu wasn't really Polamalu in his return Saturday against Baltimore -- Ryan Clark was Polamalu in his stead.

One of the problems with analyzing teams is that we're prone to overanalyzing them.

My friend Peter King in his latest column on SI.com declares the again-missing Aaron Smith as the best run-stuffing defensive end in the league. The "football scientists'' at Pro Football Focus dispute it. Who knows? Last year, with Smith (and Polamalu) missing, the Steelers missed the playoffs. This year, with Smith missing, second-year man Ziggy Hood was ready to step in and provide a reasonable facsimile and the Steelers won the AFC North.

At this stage, the Steelers are probably harder opponents for the Jets to beat than the Patriots, because of their defense and because Ben Roethlisberger is harder to sack than Brady -- rushers bounce off him. Neither offense will score a lot of points -- never do, really -- but the Pittsburgh defense is much more equipped than New England's to put pressure on Mark Sanchez, who still has problems with pass rushers in his face.

One thing about all the pregame mouthing off the Jets do: They've proven that the canard about "bulletin-board material'' doesn't matter. The only effect it had on the game in New England was the benching by Bill Belichick of Wes Welker for a series because of his retaliatory "footie'' remarks about Rex Ryan. (Maybe it did have an effect, if you buy the theory that Brady wouldn't have thrown his first interception in three decades if Welker had been on the field.)

The Jets' success comes from running the football and from aggressive defense that produces turnovers, which likely will be necessary because Sanchez WILL be under pressure. But few teams run on the Steelers, although the Jets got 106 yards on the ground in the regular-season game, 44 more than Pittsburgh's season average for rushing yards allowed.

This has all the earmarks of a 6-3 game. Or 16-13. But so did Pittsburgh-Baltimore and turnovers turned it into 31-24, even though the two offenses gained a TOTAL of 389 yards -- Pittsburgh allowed just 126. And that was skewed by the one big offensive play -- the 58-yard pass from Roethlisberger to Antonio Brown, whose David Tyree-like catch set up the winning TD.

Hey, I got through this writing "Rex Ryan'' just once.

OK, Rex Ryan.

He's demonstrated that for all his deliberate clownishness, he's a very good coach.

NFC Title Game: Packers at Bears

James Starks has provided Green Bay the rushing game it's been lacking since Ryan Grant went down in the opening game. Starks has 189 yards in two postseason games, a 3.9 yards-per-carry average. That doesn't exactly make him Walter Payton, but it does provide the Packers with a ground threat they haven't had all season and makes Rodgers more dangerous.

Let's discount the Bears' 35-24 win over Seattle, a team that didn't belong at the dance. It was a routine rout (28-0 in the third quarter) with garbage points at the end for the Seahawks when Chicago got loose and sloppy.

But let's count the Packers' 10-3 win in Green Bay in the final week of the season, and credit Chicago for playing all out in a game it didn't need but the Packers did. The low score in that one was closer to what the score in this one could be -- weather and defense contributed there and weather and defense may contribute Sunday.

Now let's go back to the game that's the reason everyone discounts the Bears -- the nationally-televised (and highly-rated) 17-3 loss to the Giants in the Meadowlands on Oct. 3, in which Jay Cutler was sacked NINE times in the first half. Yes, we all laughed at Chicago, but it was a lesson to Cutler and his offensive coordinator Mike Martz about getting the ball out more quickly. It also forced Martz and offensive line coach Mike Tice (more on both later) to shuffle the line and put guys in position to avoid that kind of thing.

Back to Starks.

He's more than just a running back, he's a symbol of the depth the Packers have assembled to deal with injuries -- 91 games lost by starters this year is the latest figure. On the other hand, the defensive starters that haven't been lost -- Clay Matthews, B.J. Raji, Charles Woodson, Tramon Williams (assuming they're not counting the long gone Al Harris as a "starter'') -- are the reason Green Bay's defense is winning games. Same for the four top receivers: Greg Jennings, Donald Driver, James Jones and Jordy Nelson.

So in truth, the Packers aren't that far from being the team a lot of people (myself included) made the preseason favorites in the NFC. Which presumably is why the Vegas guys have made them road favorites in this game.

As for the Chicago coaches ...

Martz (56-36 as a head coach in St. Louis), Tice (33-34 in Minnesota) and defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli (10-38 in Millen-era Detroit) are all former head coaches on the Chicago sideline. All have done well in descent.

And ....

Lovie Smith, who was a near-certainty to be fired after the Giants debacle, is now 66-51 in Chicago with one Super Bowl trip and a game away from a second.

Fans sure get impatient with their coaches these days.