J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS

I was 10 years old when Broadway Joe Namath made his infamous prediction that his underdog New York Jets were going to beat the heavily-favored Colts in Super Bowl III. Namath was one of my idols, the leader of my favorite football team, and a guy who was just the coolest person on the planet. If you were a kid living on Long Island in 1968, you were a New York Jets fan because of Broadway Joe. And when he made good on his boast, and won the Super Bowl, well, it was just too good to be true.

Yeah, no kidding. Since then, we Jets fans have waited 41 years for the Jets to repeat. They've made it as far as the AFC Conference championship game twice. In 1982, they lost to Miami, after it had rained for two days straight, soaking an uncovered Orange Bowl field, and rendering Richard Todd and his passing attack totally useless. The Dolphins won 14-0. It was crushing.

And then, in 1999, the Jets suddenly found themselves back again, with Vinny Testaverde in the saddle and Bill Parcells as coach. They actually led the Denver Broncos 6-0 at halftime in Denver, when John Elway woke up in the second half and took control, won the game, and ended up winning the Super Bowl.

And that's it. The Jets have only gotten that far twice in 41 years. They've gotten into the playoffs several other times, only to fall short. Most years, they have just sucked. And now, all of a sudden, we have the new Jets, the Jets of Rex Ryan, Mark Sanchez and Darrell Revis. A team with a blistering defense and a tremendous running game. A team so unlike any other Jets team that we fans don't know what to make of it.

A month ago, the Jets were plodding along at 7-7. They needed to win their last two games to make the playoffs, and they were losing to Peyton Manning and the Colts in Indy. That's when the Colts, inexplicably, decided to forego their run at a perfect season and pulled all their regulars, including Manning, at halftime and basically handed the game to the Jets. The Jets then dominated the Bengals in the final game of the season, and surprise, surprise, they made the playoffs. Then, to really confound things, they beat the Bengals again in the Wild Card round, and upset San Diego yesterday to move on to the Conference Championship for only the fourth time in their history. And who will the Jets be playing on Sunday? None other than Peyton Manning and the Colts. You couldn't have scripted it any better.

And if the Jets win on Sunday? I don't even want to get my hopes up. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. In the meantime, I found myself grinning stupidly all day today, and saying in my head "J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS"!!! Thank you, Indy, for laying down in Game 15. Here's hoping you end up regretting that decision big time!