Ellis, the 10-year Jet veteran, has no plans to miss his first AFC championship game despite a broken left hand suffered on the first Chargers offensive play Sunday.

"I went to engage the offensive lineman and my hand just gave out," Ellis said today. "I tried to finish that series and I went to the sideline and said, 'My hand's broken.' They looked at it and it was, so they put a cast on it, wrapped it up and we went from there."

Mike DeVito normally spells Ellis on first and second down as any game moves into the second half, so DeVito just jumped in a bit earlier, while Ellis went out and played third downs with what appeared to be a black billy club taped to his hand.

Ellis was going to have surgery today to put screws into the hand and stabilize it, but as he put it: "The skin wouldn't have healed in time for Sunday. You just have to suck it up. Wrap it up again and go play."

Ellis will have the surgery a week from now, win or lose against the Colts. If the Jets win, the two-week break until the Super Bowl would give his hand enough time to heal.

But he'll have the billy club again this Sunday.

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