NFL

Jets upset Patriots to face Steelers in AFC Championship

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Same old Jets: headed back to the AFC Championship game.

What? You’re surprised?

The Jets aren’t.

They’ve been talking about this for months. Remember the Super Bowl or bust talk?

The Jets are now a tantalizing 60 minutes away from their first Super Bowl appearance since the 1969 season thanks to their stirring 28-21 upset victory over the Patriots in the AFC divisional playoff round yesterday at Gillette Stadium.

The victory, the Jets’ second win over the Patriots in three games this season, climaxed an emotionally-charged week that included a series of savage, below-the-belt verbal barbs from both teams.

It also came hours after a powerful motivational speech Saturday night by Dennis Byrd, the former Jets DE whose career was cut short by a spine injury.

BOX SCORE

PHOTOS: JETS BEAT PATRIOTS, 28-21

COMPLETE JETS COVERAGE

So now the Jets return to Pittsburgh Sunday to play the Steelers, whom they defeated 22-17 at Heinz Field last month, in the AFC Championship game.

First they beat Peyton Manning and the Colts in Indianapolis. Yesterday it was Tom Brady and the Patriots in Foxborough. Now comes Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers in Pittsburgh.

“On to Round Three — mission impossible,” Rex Ryan crowed. “We came here for a reason. Maybe everyone else didn’t believe us, but we believed.”

AUDIO

REX RYAN ON THE VICTORY

MARK SANCHEZ ON HOW THE JETS WERE ABLE TO WIN

DARRELLE REVIS ON THE JETS’ TEAM EFFORT

WOODY JOHNSON: ‘I’M ENORMOUSLY PROUD’

Ryan began the week of hype saying this game was going to come down to him against Bill Belichick. Ryan openly admitted he’d been schooled by Belichick in the Patriots’ 45-3 win over the Jets on Dec. 6.

When it was all over yesterday and they met on the field, the congratulatory handshake turned into a prolonged embrace between the two men, one during which Belichick looked to be earnestly delivering respect to Ryan.

Neither coach would say what words were spoken; Ryan would only say Belichick was “very complimentary.”

He should have been. Belichick, one of the most creative defensive minds the NFL has ever seen, had to marvel at the plan Ryan devised that turned Tom Brady, the Patriots’ MVP and Hall of Fame-bound quarterback, from a man to a boy on this day.

MORE AUDIO

BART SCOTT ON THE TEAM’S STRATEGY

LaDAINIAN TOMLINSON: ‘WE’RE A RESILIENT BUNCH OF GUYS’

SHONN GREENE: ‘WE’LL PLAY ANY TEAM’

SHAUN ELLIS ON THE JETS’ DEFENSIVE STRATEGY

Ryan, his coaching staff and the players conducted an utter defensive clinic against the defensive mastermind Belichick, Brady and the Patriots’ offense with a diabolical mix of pressure and coverage that confused and frustrated Brady, who threw 36 TDs and only four INTs this season.

Based on the circumstances and the performance, this was the Jets’ finest defensive three hours under Ryan.

This was, after all, a Patriots team that entered the game having scored 30 or more points in its last eight games and averaging 32.4 points per game.

The look of fear, confusion and bewilderment in Brady’s eyes was priceless for the Jets defenders.

“He was terrified,” Jets defensive tackle Trevor Pryce said. “In the first half he was absolutely frazzled. It’s shocking because you don’t see it very often. The game plan was out of sight. We did some stuff I’ve never seen a pro football coach do. It was the craziest thing I ever saw. We turned simple things and found a way to make it as complicated as possible and Tom Brady literally had no answer for it.

“Tom Brady is going to look at the film tomorrow and say, ‘Oh, that’s what they were doing.’ We confused a Hall of Fame quarterback, but we think we have a Hall of Fame coach.”

The Jets sacked Brady five times, the most he’s been taken down all season, and they picked him off once. So three of Brady’s five INTs this season came against the Jets.

“He was scared straight,” Jets safety James Ihedigbo said. “He had no idea where the pressures were coming from.”

The Jets, who’ve now won eight of 10 games on the road this season, set the tone in the first half, taking a 14-3 halftime lead thanks to two Mark Sanchez TD passes — a 7-yarder to LaDainian Tomlinson and a 15-yarder to Braylon Edwards.

The Edwards TD was set up by a bizarre fake punt call from their own 38-yard line on which safety Patrick Chung fumbled and was tackled for a 1-yard loss by Eric Smith.

That gave the Jets the ball at the New England 36-yard line with 1:06 remaining in the half. Four plays later, Sanchez hit Edwards.

“That’s what I think lost the game for them,” Pryce said. “I was like, ‘What in the world?’ They knew they had to do something. They were struggling. It was absolutely, 100-percent an act of desperation. A fake punt at the 30-yard line? Are you serious? They were so smart they outsmarted themselves.”

After the Patriots cut the lead to 14-11 on a Brady TD pass to Alge Crumpler and a two-point conversion, the Jets answered with a 7-yard Sanchez scoring pass to Santonio Holmes to take a 21-11 lead.

That TD, along with the way the Jets were playing defense, made it pretty clear the Jets weren’t leaving the building without a victory.

So it’s now on to Pittsburgh, where the Jets have a chance to advance to their first Super Bowl since Joe Namath was calling signals for them.

“I told the players last game [in Pittsburgh a month ago], ‘Make your marks, because we’re coming back here,’ ” Ryan said. “I said the same thing about going to back to New England. For some reason, maybe I’m not always going to be wrong about everything I say.”