What was a marathon has become a sprint, with the most dire of consequences should one fail, and a rush of euphoria if one should succeed. 

We're talking, of course, about the conference championship games today, where two teams will punch their ticket to the Super Bowl.  The other two will dream about next year while making reservations at the local golf course.  When it comes to the two teams doing battle in the AFC, there couldn't be a more striking dichotomy than what you'll find on the field in Lucas Oil Stadium come Sunday.

The Indianapolis Colts are a team led by a proven, veteran quarterback in Peyton Manning.  The New York Jets are led by an unproven rookie quarterback in Mark Sanchez.  The Colts thrive with the aerial attack, throwing to Reggie Wayne, Pierre Garcon, Austin Collie, and Dallas Clark.  They struggle running the ball, as evidenced by last week's victory over the Ravens, where they ran the ball twenty five times for all of 42 yards.

Meanwhile, the Jets pound the ball away with the run behind Thomas Jones and rookie Shonn Greene, who set a franchise record for rushing yards in a postseason game last week against San Diego.  They avoid passing the ball, as evidenced by Sanchez's 20 picks this season. The offense was dumbed down to traffic light colors in assessing risk factors for him. 

The Jets do have a terrific offensive line, which has enabled them to thrive running the football, and keeping pressure situations off Sanchez.  A key factor will be whether the Colts can bottle the run game up enough to force the rookie to make plays to beat them.  After all, this IS a Colts team that won the first fourteen games of the season before pulling their starters out in week sixteen and barely playing them in the season finale.

In fact, it was BECAUSE Jim Caldwell pulled his starters that the Jets are even IN the playoffs.  Indianapolis led the Jets 15-10 in the third quarter before Manning and company went to the sidelines.  Curtis Painter was sacked, fumbled and the Jets recovered the ball in the end zone for the go ahead score as the Jets went on to score 19 unanswered points to keep their playoff hopes alive.  They clinched a spot with a waxing of the Bengals in week seventeen.  Following road wins in Cincinnati and San Diego, Sanchez gets the test of his life as he steps in with Manning with a chance to rekindle memories of Broadway Joe.

As many recall, Namath brashly guaranteed a Super Bowl III victory over the then Baltimore Colts and delivered, mainly in part to Matt Snell and three Jim Turner field goals.  Sanchez isn't making such bold predictions, though Rex Ryan insisted repeatedly that his team should be considered a Super Bowl favorite.  Big keys for the Jets will be staying out of third and long situations, because Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis are lethal pass rushers, and the Jets are still lacking in a go to receiver.  Braylon Edwards continues to be plagued with the dropsies, and Jerricho Cotchery seemed to do better with Coles on the opposite side.

The Jets need to RUN the ball effectively against a smallish Colts defense to try and control tempo while keeping Manning off the field.  This can set up Sanchez for play action passes to stretch things out again and keep Indy guessing.  Defensively, the big matchup of course is Darrelle Revis on Reggie Wayne, but the Jets need to find a way to blanket Clark and force Manning to look for check downs and secondary receivers. 

On the flip side, Indy needs to be able to stop the Jets running attack and force Sanchez to beat them.  They need to be aggressive, perhaps running zone blitzes, run blitzes and a myriad of stunts and looks to confuse the rookie.  Manning needs to work the ball around, something he is extremely successful at, and most importantly, Indianapolis needs to do what they failed to do a lot of the first half of the game against the Jets in week sixteen, along with what San Diego failed to do last week:  finish drives.

The Chargers had multiple opportunities to score points and put the game away but came up empty, especially as Nate Kaeding missed three field goals.  In a one possession game, those add up quickly.  Indianapolis NEEDS to capitalize on scoring opportunities when they arrive against the number one defense in the league.  Plain and simple, there are no two ways about it. 

I'm sure there are a lot of fans out there that want the Jets to win, but to me, picking against the Colts is like giving a woman fat burner advice: you can try, but you have no one to blame but yourself when you get punched in the face.  After extensive research, time, endless hours of watching game footage and crunching the numbers, I can't, in good conscience, tell you that a rookie QB is going to take a team to the Super Bowl over a guy who has already won one.  For the record, my good friend Canucklehead agrees.  He's Canadian you know, so that should give him extra credibility...or not. 

I'm going with the Colts to prevail and go to Miami for a chance at a second Super Bowl ring, by a count of 23-10.