Alright, prediction time. It's time for the Conference Championship, which unfortunately spells the beginning of the end of the football season and a semi-dry spell in the sports realm. (We'll get these two games which won't wrap until a little after 9PM EST this week and then wait two weeks for the longest game of the year with the longest pre-game known to man.) Been a great year, as a Giants fan, it'd probably be one I'd have enjoyed more if not for Coughlin's presence on the sideline but I'll get to that in a second...

AFC Championship
San Diego vs. New England
- Ya know, if someone asked me a few weeks ago if these two were to meet how bad would it be, I'd ask them to recall just about every Tyson fight from 1986 to 1990 (Buster) and think of how much worse it'd be if uh...there was no ref. Now? I don't know really. I think that with the win last week in Indy, it's hard to make heads or tails out of it. Did SD really win that game, or did Indy have too much pride to take the long trip to a place where Peyton's never won to try and get another crack at defending their Super Bowl Championship (as Bill Simmons has theorized and likened it to the Lakers in 1986 going down to the Twin Towers in Houston *that's Sampson and a very young Hakeem* during the Western Conference Finals). In a way, as a football fan, I feel robbed. Nobody was looking forward to this rematch between the Colts and Pats more than me, but to get a rematch from a game in Week 2 that wasn't that competitive to begin with...forgive me if I sleep through this. Seriously.

The Bolts have a chance to exact revenge for the Pats not only beating them a year ago and feasibly stopping them from winning a Super Bowl, but to end what could be the greatest season we've seen this side of the 1972 Dolphins (who I'm sick of hearing about damnit). For the Pats, they simply have a chance to silence yet another ignorant voice that dare speak against them in vain.

Sorry Norv, your run ends here. Pats win. Now...the fun one.

NFC Championship
New York vs. Green Bay
- Here's one reason I have reason to smile about this game.

NY's 3-0 lifetime in NFC Championship games.

Here's something to contradict that however...

Tom Coughlin's 0-2 in Conference Championship games and in one of those games, he earned the dubious distinction of losing to a team that swept his team during the regular season. So the way I figure it, one of two things will happen at or around 10PM EST on Sunday night. Either I will be screaming at the top of my lungs for Coughlin's head or I'm going to be feasting on the biggest piece of Humble Pie outside of Foxboro because he'll have taken the Giants to a place only two other coaches have before him. And I liked them a helluva lot more than I do this one.

So let's look at what's in front of Coughlin THIS time...

- Lambeau Field. Freezing temps.
- Brett Favre.
- A running back that the Giants cast aside earlier in the year (what with hindsight being 20/20).
- Eli's horrible track record in the cold.

Coughlin avoided history repeating itself (being the only coach in playoff history to be beaten by the same team thrice in one season) last week by beating Dallas.

On the flipside of this, there's Favre whom I'm likening to my favorite wrestler of all time...Ric Flair. Like Flair, most if not all were calling for him to hang it up. The game's passed him by and he's not who he used to be. Favre, like Flair even at his "advanced" age is still playing the position better than most that are HALF his age. The sentimentalist in me is pulling for Favre on this factor ALONE. Never mind the fact that hands down, the Pack are the better team in this game. Never mind the fact that Favre doesn't lose very much when the temps drop below 34 degrees in Lambeau. Never mind the fact (this being overlooked more than any other) that Favre's had his best year to date, even better than when he won his one and only Super Bowl title. All told, to this point, the Giants have done more than is or was expected (hell, ask the right Giants fan not named me and even they'll tell you we're better off without Coughlin) while...well, here's one way of putting it. If the Pats don't go undefeated this season, odds are damn great McCarthy's your COTY and Favre's your MVP.

End of the day, Favre will style and profile, with a chance at one last brass ring and a possible rematch with the Pats some 12 years in the making in front of him.

Go Pack! :P