Nick Folk kicks Jets to New England, beats Manning & Colts

JETS 17
COLTS 16

Rex Ryan said it was personal. He wanted desperately to beat Peyton Manning in a game, playoffs or regular season, having lost to him five times.

Tonight in a game that combined some gritty play by the Jets offensive line and running game, combined with a bend but don't break play by the defense, and some really bizarre decisions by the Colts coaches, led to the Jets victory in the wild card round.

Now the Jets head back to New England where they got pasted 45-3 over a month ago.

Quarterback Mark Sanchez was not good. Even though he hit some big passes in the second half like the 18 yard pass to Braylon Edwards to set up the Nick Folk field goal with just 19 seconds to go, he played unevenly.

He overthrew his receivers, threw a huge interception in the first half that killed a potential scoring drive, and was erratic all day completing 18 of 31 for 189 yards.

Trailing the Colts 7-0, the Jets came out in the second half with a purpose to pound the football. with Shonn Greene and LaDainian Tomlinson. The Jets drove the ball on the opening drive of the half for six minutes culminating in a Tomlinson touchdown to tie it.

After the Colts got a field goal, a couple of big 11 yard passes by Sanchez to Edwards and Dustin Keller helped set up the Jets second score of the day, a five yard completion to Ben Hartsock to give the Jets the lead 14-10. The drive consumed 9:46 off the clock.

Then it got really bizarre. Peyton Manning marched the Colts down all the way the Jets 15 yard line. It appeared that the Colts were in great position to score the go-ahead score, but on a third and six at the 15, the Colts called a running play to Dominck Rhodes. Rhodes was tackled by Brodney Pool to force Indy to kick, settling for a 14-13 Jets lead.

Why did the Colts run it there? One will never know. Logic would tell you to put the ball in Manning's hands, but the Colts decided not to do it. It probably cost them dearly.

After the Jets failed to move the football, Manning got one more shot to make up for the previous drive. He hit Jacob Tamme twice for big gains, and Blair White for gains of 11 and 12 to set up Adam Vinatieri with a clutch 50 yard field goal to give the Colts a 16-14 lead.

With 53 seconds the Jets had one shot to get down field and give their own kicker, the unreliable Folk a shot to win it.

After the Jets ran the ball for no gain, the clock ticked down to 29 seconds before the Colts oddly called their final time out. Why call the timeout? Again another puzzling decision by the Colts coaching staff. The timeout gave the Jets time to think, which was a huge mistake.

On the next play, Sanchez hit Edwards for 18, before Folk won it with a field goal.