The Colts might be the prohibitive favorite to win the AFC championship game on Sunday, but one thing that might help the Jets is their familiarity from having played and won, 29-15, three weeks ago in Indianapolis. They faced a similar situation in the wild-card round of the playoffs when they met Cincinnati after beating the Bengals a week earlier in the regular-season finale.
 
When Colts coach Jim Caldwell pulled quarterback Peyton Manning with just over five minutes left in the third quarter of their last meeting. Indianapolis held a narrow, 15-10 lead. "We were holding our own, weathering the storm," Jets linebacker Bart Scott said today. "We embrace the challenge. It will be tougher because [Manning] will study us to death. That's why it's key for us to be 'multiple.' "
 
Scott was talking about how the Jets must show Manning a variety of looks and disguise their coverages as much as possible to create some sense of confusion. No one is better than Manning at deciphering a defense and reacting accordingly.
 
"You can't give Manning the same looks," Scott said. "He looks at pictures of your defense [during the game]. You have your staples, but you have to throw him coverages that look the same but are different ... It's tough. He's one of the best in the business."
 
In a way, the preparation the Jets did for San Diego quarterback Philip Rivers and the Chargers' dynamic offense will help them to understand what might work best against the Colts. In the Chargers game, the Jets played a lot of zone pass coverage in the first half and switched to more effective man coverage in the second half.
 
"There's a lot of preparation, especially for Rivers and Peyton Manning, because they prepare so much for you," said defensive lineman Mike DeVito. "It was good to play [the Colts] the first time around to see what they were doing. It will help, too, to watch the tape of their [divisional playoff win over] the Ravens. The Ravens play similar to us, and we'll have a lot to go off of."

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