AFC Championship Game Prediction

Okay, so the Steelers and the Jets. Now, I am a Giants fan, first and foremost, but have never seen much sense in hating the other New York area football team. In fact, the Jets have always been my second favorite team, and I root for them when the Giants have been eliminated from playoff contention (which is starting to be an uncomfortable pattern these last few years, but that another topic entirely). So, let me just say that I hope the Jets do it, and beat the Steelers, as they did last month in Pittsburgh. It would be nice, for once, not to have to see the Colts, the Patriots, or the Steelers representing the AFC in February’s big game.

That said, it does not go by what I want, now, does it? After all, the Giants are not in it, and have not really seriously been in the thing ever since they relinquished a 21-point lead with a bit more than seven minutes to go against Michael Vick’s Eagles, which has already been dubbed the “Second Miracle in the Meadowlands”. So I will put my personal wants aside, and try to see how these teams match up against one another, head to head.

I think that it’s fair to say that the Jets are the hotter team. With all of the brash trash talking, which they actually backed up on the field against Belichick, Brady, and the rest of the Patriots, they seem capable of playing the mind game effectively, before the kickoff, even. It clearly either fired the team up, psyched their opponents out, or both. Plus, it is a fine New York tradition in sports, predicting victory and then delivering. From Namath’s guarantee of victory over the powerful and heavily favored Colts for those same Jets in 1969, to Mark Messier’s predicting a Game 6 victory over the Devils in 1994, which propelled the Rangers to enjoy the run that earned them the Stanley Cup after 54 years without, to the more recent Giants Super Bowl victory over those same Patriots, who were of course vying to be only the second team to complete a perfect season, and to be then classified as the greatest team ever, New York has more such magical moments in it’s history than any other city in sports in North America. Remember that Plaxico Burress even predicted the score to be 23-17, and he was not that far off the mark. Perhaps only Chicago can even remotely compete, with the “Super Bowl Shuffle” in 1985, and with Michael Jordan’s predictions (which proved remarkably accurate, actually) that the Bulls would win yet another championship, which he did in both 1997 and 1998. But these famous episodes in New York sports live on because of the brashness that it took to make these predictions under the circumstances, not to mention the delivery, and thus tended to be more powerful and mythical, especially in the case of Namath’s Jets.

That said, I would be remiss not to mention that such guarantees have not always been successful either. Remember Patrick Ewing’s annual tradition of predicting an NBA Championship for the Knicks? Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, he is not alone. Guarantees and predictions have kind of lost their novelty, since everyone started doing it. And all too often, whoever makes the most noise winds up being a non-factor, and often even ends up on the losing side. So, yeah, that kind of grew old in a hurry. Still, would it really be surprising if this week was filled with as much trash talking as last week? Not really.

When the defense is on for the Jets, it plays very intense, and can keep the Kets in any game. There have been lapses, like in the earlier meeting at Foxboro, or with the Chicago game. But that is not likely to happen this Sunday. The Steelers are good, but the motivated Jets should rise up to the challenge.

Still, the Steelers are no slouches themselves. You don’t win two Super Bowls in four years by being purely lucky, and that is why they are trying for a third in six years, which would make them a bona fide dynasty, really. They are fighting for no less than that, and if they beat the Jets, they will most likely be favored to win the whole thing. After all, they have more experience on this level than any other team still alive, and have a very productive and dangerous offense that knows what it takes to win, to go along with their trademark, hard-nosed defense, which will surely give Mark Sanchez and the Jets more difficulties than the Patriots were able to.

But the Jets defense will probably be very stingy, and I see this being a low scoring affair. After having beaten Peyton Manning’s Colts and Tom Brady’s Patriots in consecutive weeks (the first team to ever do that), the Jets really are flying high. So Pittsburgh will have their work cut out for them, trying to put points on the board.

The outcome of this game will most likely be greatly determined by turnovers, and it would not be surprising to points scored by one (or both) of the defensive units. Any mistake by either team could conceivably be the game.

That said, I’m going to go with my heart on this one, and say the Jets will win. Trying to look at it objectively, the Jets are the hotter team. The Steelers are not the most explosive unit, and New York should be able to contain Roethlisberger, although that passing game cannot be completely shut down. Look for the Jets to bend but not break, and for the offense to do just enough to hang around, with the Jets taking this game in the final minutes, 20-16.

J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets!