Suddenly, It’s Season of Change

So, the 2002 NFL season moves on to 2003, and the Atlanta Falcons move on to Lambeau Field, where Green Bay had never previously lost a playoff game and Brett Favre had never lost a start when the temperature at kickoff was below 34 degrees.

It was snowing in Green Bay.

It was freezing in Green Bay.

It was Falcons 27, Packers 7 in Green Bay.

The Packers, who clinched their division championship on Dec. 1, sooner than any other team in the league, are out of the playoffs sooner than any other home team in the playoffs.

The Falcons, who lost three of their last four regular-season games but backed into the NFC’s last wild-card berth because the New Orleans Saints lost their last three regular-season games, are headed to Philadelphia for a second-round matchup against the Eagles.

New year, same season.

Or is it?

In another wild-card game in another frigid football stadium Saturday, the New York Jets thrashed the Indianapolis Colts, 41-0, for their ninth victory in their last dozen games, outscoring their last three opponents -- all recently reputed to be good -- by a cumulative 113-34.

First, the Jets defeated the defending Super Bowl champions on their home field, 30-17, a result that eventually cost New England a return trip to the postseason.

Next, the Jets pounded Green Bay, 42-17, with the Packers needing the victory to secure home-field advantage in the NFC.

Then, the Jets brace for the arrival of Peyton Manning-to-Marvin Harrison in the Meadowlands and hold the NFL’s new single-season reception record-holder to four catches for 47 yards and intercept Manning’s passes twice and ring up one of the most lopsided playoff victories in league history.

In the new and not improved NFL, that kind of run qualifies as a dynasty.

In the win-one, lose-one, let’s-keep-the-Browns-in-this-thing AFC, that type of streak qualifies the Jets, who don’t figure to have another home game this season, as the team to beat in the AFC.

Hey, here’s a team that hasn’t lost since Dec. 15!

(On the surface, that might not sound like much. But that’s more than Philadelphia, Tampa Bay and Atlanta can say.)

In fact, since that Dec. 15 defeat against Chicago, when Wayne Chrebet finished last in the 100-yard high hurdles, the Jets have resembled the Vince Lombardi Packers, who are not to be confused with the Mike Sherman Packers and probably never will, not after Saturday.

(One difference worth mentioning between the Lombardi Packers and the Sherman Packers: In Ice Bowl I in 1967, with his team needing a touchdown against Dan Reeves’ team, Lombardi bypassed a field-goal attempt on fourth down and it was Bart Starr behind the block of Jerry Kramer into the end zone, the Super Bowl and NFL Films immortality. In Ice Bowl II in 2003, with his team needing a touchdown against Reeves’ team, Sherman also bypassed attempting a field goal on fourth down and opted for a deep-retreat, s-l-o-w handoff to Ahman Green, who was tackled for a three-yard loss, preserving a 21-0 Falcon lead.)

The Jets in the Super Bowl? That hasn’t happened since Joe Namath and Super Bowl III, a game also won by the Jets over the Colts. So if you don’t yet believe in Chad Pennington, but are still undecided about omens and harbingers, well, there’s that.

Of course, 34 years ago, those Colts knew how to win big games. When they lost to the Jets, 16-7, it was heralded as the upset of the century. Of course, those Colts were coached by Don Shula, who went on to win a couple Super Bowls with Miami, and not by Tony Dungy, who has never won a playoff game on the road.

Dungy is 0-5 in road playoff games, 2-5 overall. Manning is 0-3 in playoff games played anywhere. And the Colts, since moving from Baltimore in 1984, are 2-6 in the postseason -- winless except for a couple Jim Harbaugh-engineered victories in 1995.

That combination did not appear destined for success in New Jersey on Saturday. But 41-0? Equaling the Minnesota Vikings’ 41-0 loss to the New York Giants in the 2000 NFC final as the second biggest postseason blowout in league history? Trailing only the Washington Redskins’ 73-0 loss to the Chicago Bears in the 1940 title game?

The Jets led, 7-0, faster than you can say “Come back, Jim Mora, all is forgiven.” Quickly, they pumped the advantage up to 10-0 and 17-0, reducing the one-time triple-threat attack of Manning, Harrison and Edgerrin James to a solitary, predictable dimension: Manning, throwing desperately into double coverage for Harrison.

It was 24-0 at the half, same as it was in Green Bay. Meaning that in the first halves of their first-round playoff games, Favre and Manning, strong arms of the old guard, were outscored, 48-0, by offenses led by Michael Vick and Pennington, each making their first postseason starts.

The times, they are a-changing.

Can the Jets, who were 1-4 and 2-5 at points during the regular season, reach the Super Bowl? Put it this way: They are better balanced than the last two AFC champions, Baltimore and New England, and those teams won the Super Bowl.

The Jets have a young quarterback on a roll and feeling his oats, similar to Tom Brady last season, except Brady didn’t have the run-receiving options Pennington has. Neither did Trent Dilfer in 2000. The Jets also have the fundamental postseason building blocks -- coaching, defense and a reliable kicker in John Hall. Barring two major upsets by Cleveland, the Jets will have to travel for the second and third rounds -- but so did Baltimore in 2000, winning successive games at Tennessee and Oakland.

Most likely, the Jets are headed next to Oakland. That would be the fourth Jet-Raider matchup in the last 12 months. The teams split last January and Oakland won the most recent meeting, 26-20, on Dec. 2.

Familiarity breeds contempt, but contempt is a given whenever the opposition includes Al Davis.

Given the hobbled state of the Raider secondary, familiarity could also mean a Jet victory.