Conference Championship Predictions

Figured I'd weigh in on the upcoming NFL Conference Championship games this Sunday.  Now, I know that some of you out there in Reader Land follow sports a lot more intently than I do, and I don't pretend to be nearly as knowledgeable about all the ins and outs of sports as you guys are, but I still have my opinions, and feel the need to share them.  I'm just telling it the way I see it from my limited perspective.  Y'all are more than welcome to comment with your own opinions; all I ask is that you please do so in a respectful manner.  I mean, hey, what do I know?  I went 0-for-4 in my predictions last weekend. 

All right, enough rambling.  I'll start with the easier game to predict. 

NFC Championship: Vikings at Saints
On paper, both of these teams are pretty well-rounded.  Both Minnesota and New Orleans have Pro-Bowl quarterbacks in Brett Favre and Drew Brees, as well as a respectable, if not high-end, corps of receivers (Sidney Rice, Bernard Berrian, and Visanthe Shiancoe for Minnesota; Robert Meachem, Marques Colston, and Devery Henderson for New Orleans).  Both of these teams, though, can also get things done on the ground when necessary - Adrian Peterson has been a beast for the Vikes all season long, and Reggie Bush certainly made the Saints glad they drafted him in '06 in the Divisional Round against Arizona.  But as the saying goes, "Defense Wins Championships", and both defenses will have their hands full with the opposing offenses, though they both seem to be up to the task.  The Vikings have without a doubt one of the most fearsome D's in the NFL, fronted by Jared Allen and the Williams Wall.  I'm tempted to pick the Vikings at first, but don't count out the Saints' defense despite the team's struggles in December.  They did, after all, hold Arizona, a team that put up 51 points against one of the league's top defenses in the Wild Card Round, to just 14 points.  In the end, the offenses and defenses kind of balance each other out, and though both of these teams are used to playing indoors, I'm going to have to pick the Saints, simply because it's in New Orleans and they'll have the crowd on their side.  At any rate, this is certainly a game that I am looking forward to watching. 
Saints 26, Vikings 17.  

AFC Championship: Jets at Colts
First off, these were two of the last teams that I expected to see playing for a trip to Miami.  While the Colts had the best regular-season record in the league, their defense has been rather suspect, and all of the games that they won against competitive teams came down to a few fortunate bounces.  But that wasn't the case last week, as they held Baltimore to just a single field goal, keeping the mighty Ray Rice out of the end zone, and put up 20 on a Ravens team that has been historically one of the best when it comes to defense.  The Jets, meanwhile, seem to have been lucky to have even made the playoffs at all - it was only because the Colts practically handed them the game on a silver platter in Week 16.  This team has a lot of similarities to the 2004 Steelers - a sensational rookie QB, backed up by a rushing offense and a defense that were near the top, if not the best in the league.  One can argue that the Jets' beat San Diego only because Chargers kicker Nate "Baby Face" Kaeding consistently chokes in the playoffs.  But you gotta give a lot of credit to the Jets' defense for keeping them in the game against a very well-rounded Chargers team that had won eleven in a row.  I had predicted a humiliating loss for the Jets, but after seeing them last Sunday, I'm now a believer in the Gang Green.  Now, Mark Sanchez is no Ben Roethlisberger, and to say that would not have been a compliment in the regular season, but in the postseason, that's a good thing, because unlike Big Ben in his rookie year, Sanchez has shown a lot more poise under fire in the previous two rounds.  History is not on Mark Sanchez's side - no rookie QB has ever won a Superbowl, and (correct me if I'm wrong) only one (Dan Marino) has even made it to the Superbowl - but there's a first time for everything.  And as far as defense goes, the Colts aren't exactly the 2004 New England Patriots.  This has been without a doubt the most difficult game for me to pick in all my years of pigskin prognostication, and I kept flip-flopping between the two teams, but I think I finally have my answer.  Though I won't be surprised if I'm horribly wrong, with all due apologies to my roommate...
Jets 23, Colts 21.