Dr. Z's Forecast
Posted: Wednesday January 13, 1999 11:15 AM
By Paul Zimmerman  Jets left tackle
Jumbo Elliott remembers
the last time he played in a conference championship game. It was nine
seasons ago. He was a Giant. Bill Parcells was the coach. The team traveled
to San Francisco to meet the favored 49ers. "They were going for a
three-peat," Elliott said after the Jets beat the Jaguars on Sunday. "We
beat them, but when we checked into our Super Bowl hotel, the gift shops in
the lobby were full of 49ers stuff. No one had expected us to win."
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The Broncos' Bill Romanowski (53) will face an aggressive Jets attack. John Biever |
The
man who runs Parcells's defense is Bill Belichick, the same guy who set up
the Giants' defense that held the 49ers' star-studded cast -- Rice and
Montana and Taylor and Craig; you know the names -- to 240 yards in the
15-13 victory nine years ago. How will the Jets respond in the AFC
Championship Game against a Broncos team that, stung by whispers that its
season was sliding away, unloaded early and often on the Dolphins? First
there's the Jets' 3-4 defense, a good run-stopping setup, with an emphasis
on closing down Terrell
Davis's cutbacks. Then there are the coverage matchups: Otis Smith will probably
draw deep threat Rod
Smith, and 5'8" Ray
Mickens will cover 6'5" Ed McCaffrey. Sounds like
a mismatch, but Mickens is a terrifically instinctive cornerback. The Jets'
offense will attack aggressively, as it did against the Jaguars, from some
wildly imaginative alignments. If New York can make Denver play from
behind, well, anything could happen. My feeling? Two years of
experience at the highest level of competition will be the difference.
Broncos in a squeaker . In the NFC
title game, I have a hunch that the Falcons' Chris Chandler will come
out throwing. Then Atlanta will hammer with Jamal Anderson, mindful of
the way the Bucs pounded the Vikings in Minnesota's only loss. But the
Vikings have simply too much firepower in their arsenal. Minnesota will be
facing a sturdier defensive line than it did against Arizona, but the war
of attrition will go the Vikings' way
. Issue date: January 18, 1999
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