JETS_ALREAD_CHAMPS

This is a screencap of the shop page at the NY Jets online shop, and yes, they don’t even need to go through with the formality of an AFC championship before crowning themselves champs. I’m sure they’ve already booked their team flight to Miami and started studying film on both the Vikings and the Saints, unless the Jets know how that game is going to end, too. Is the team’s merchandising division taking on the same swagger as its football coach, Rex Ryan?

Ryan’s brash talk has made him a cult hero to Jets fans, who have been this close to the Super Bowl only twice before in the 41 years since the Jets shocked the Colts in Super Bowl III. Now they are trying to shock the Colts again in the conference championship game after losing to the Dolphins in the ’82 season game in Miami and the Broncos in the ’98 game in Denver. –NY Daily News

It’s bizarre to think of someone as calm and semi-demure as Peyton Manning trying to match wits with this guy. Ryan seems like he’d be more comfortable trying to eat Peyton Manning. The Jets are currently 8-point underdogs, which seems like a lot, considering that they were able to hang with the Colts at Indy for the two-and-a-half quarters that Peyton played them in Week 16. The Jets should be even hungrier on Sunday.