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New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez made the radio rounds Friday and sat down for a few minutes with the "Scott Van Pelt Show" to talk about various stuffs.

Sanchez provided a Super Bowl preview through the eyes of a quarterback who faced both the Indianapolis Colts (twice) and New Orleans Saints and talked about the invaluable experience and confidence he gained by playing deep into the postseason.

"It was a lifetime of emotions and energy, but it was so much fun," Sanchez said. "The only other thing we could've done was get to the Super Bowl. One of the hidden stats in this season could've been winning some of those games that I felt like I gave away by throwing interceptions. We might get those games at home in the playoffs. It might take a little pressure off us.

"We have a lot to build on and have a lot of great guys coming back."

In case you were wondering, Sanchez picks the Colts to win Sunday.

ESPN's Tim Hasselbeck presents the season review for the AFC runner-up New York Jets.

ESPN's John Clayton takes a spin around the conference in his weekly "AFC Huddle."

Clayton leads off with what happens next for the New York Jets. He doesn't see running back Thomas Jones or cornerback Lito Sheppard coming back in 2010 and wonders how they'll eventually replace left guard Alan Faneca and right tackle Damien Woody.

Also addressed are the number of changes in store for the Buffalo Bills under new head coach Chan Gailey. Will Gailey switch the Bills to a 3-4 defense? Will Trent Edwards get another shot to be the quarterback?

The New York Jets no longer are the same team that came within a half of reaching the Super Bowl.

A transition to 2010 already has begun. The club on Monday parted ways with four assistant coaches and a consultant.

The changes won't impact the infrastructure of Rex Ryan's staff and mostly eliminates overkill. All of the aides answered to a primary position coach.

Gone are special teams coach Kevin O'Dea, assistant secondary coach Doug Plank, assistant quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo and defensive quality control assistant Brian Smith.

Plank, the most recognizable name and the inspiration for Buddy Ryan's 46 defense, was fired. The other three assistants didn't have their expired contracts renewed.

Plank helped secondary coach Dennis Thurman. DeFilippo, who coached the Oakland Raiders' quarterbacks for two seasons before joining the Jets, was an underling to quarterbacks coach Matt Cavanaugh. Jets offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer also is an accomplished QB guru.

O'Dea became redundant last year, when venerable special-teams coordinator Mike Westhoff returned from a brief retirement driven by medical issues. The Jets also have special-teams assistant Ben Kotwica.

Quality control coaches are tantamount to entry-level assistants. Smith had been with the Jets three seasons in that capacity.

Also leaving is pass-rushing consultant Chuck Smith, whom outside linebacker Clavin Pace credited with his big season. The former Atlanta Falcons defensive end helped out in training camp and was asked to stick around. He's leaving to become the University of Tennessee's defensive line coach.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Braylon Edwards wants to remain a New York Jet and is excited enough about the future that he suggested Mark Sanchez is a Peyton Manning in waiting.

The Jets were a run-dominant club all season, leading the NFL in rushing offense while nurturing the rookie Sanchez along.

But for the first time in weeks, the Jets found themselves in a situation where they had to pass in the second half to stay in the game. They simply didn't have the wherewithal to keep up with the Indianapolis Colts.

The Jets threw a few aerial haymakers at the Colts in the first half, including a franchise playoff record 80-yard touchdown hurl from Sanchez to Edwards, but once the Colts took the lead and knew the Jets had to pass, they had little trouble with containment.

Can the Jets become a more versatile offense in 2010?

"It's not about evolving. It's about the situation," Edwards said. "The run worked for us all year. Thomas Jones and Shonn Greene as well as our line did a tremendous job all season.

"The passing game was in a developing stage because, one, you have a rookie quarterback. Two, you have a new acquisition in myself, who has to learn the system. Dustin Keller made some plays for us, but he's still young. We get an offseason together, and we'll be able to get together with Mark. All of us can learn how we play.

"Mark will get better, and slowly but surely become a Peyton Manning, a guy that knows his receivers, a guy that knows the game."

INDIANAPOLIS -- While the New York Jets talked assertively about being Super Bowl favorites and proudly promoted AFC championship gear available for purchase through the team Web site, the Indianapolis Colts remained peaceful in the days leading up to the conference title game.

Once the Colts knocked off the feisty but clearly overmatched Jets on Sunday, some voices were raised in the winning locker room.

"To hear them talk all week, I don't usually watch all those NFL channels and all those sports things because it kind of takes you out of your main focus," Colts linebacker Clint Session said. "But this week, I did pay a little attention to things and caught some guys over there making noise and all of that.

"You can't win with all that talking; you've got to put up on the field."

Colts strong safety Melvin Bullitt took umbrage with the Jets' defensive cockiness.

The Jets had the NFL's best scoring defense, total defense and passing defense in the regular season. Colts quarterback Peyton Manning threw for 377 yards, and the Colts outgained the Jets on the ground, 101-86.

"So you tell me which defense has the better rush defense," Bullitt said. "All the talking and everything they did, you tell me who has the better rush offense."

Bullitt needs to realize Jets playoff MVP Shonn Greene was sidelined early in the third quarter -- when the Jets were leading -- with a rib injury. But the Colts did shut down Thomas Jones, who rushed for 1,402 yards and 14 touchdowns.

And before you write in with objections to my reference about the Jets selling AFC championship merchandise, yes, I do realize that all of the final four teams had apparel and other geegaws available on NFL.com.

But the Jets were alone in not only selling them on their Web site, but also in making comments about it. Jets coach Rex Ryan opened Friday's news conference by saying how much he loved the idea.

INDIANAPOLIS -- The New York Jets went to the Hoosier state with Super Bowl aspirations.

They left with the 29th draft choice.

Sunday's loss to the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship Game settles the AFC East's draft order. The Jets were assigned their slot ahead of the Minnesota Vikings based on regular-season records.

There's special significance to drafting 25th and later this year.

Clubs assigned the final eight draft slots in the first round are under free-agency restrictions because of a stipulation in the collective bargaining agreement that pertains to the final year of the contract.

The Jets and the other seven teams that made it past the first round of the playoffs won't be allowed to sign a free agent unless one of their free agents signs with somebody else.

Unless a new CBA is hammered out before the draft -- virtually impossible -- here is an outline of what will happen (from a release the NFL recently distributed):

During the final league year, the eight clubs that make the divisional playoffs in the previous season have additional restrictions that limit their ability to sign unrestricted free agents from other clubs. In general, the four clubs participating in the championship games are limited in the number of free agents that they may sign; the limit is determined by the number of their own free agents signing with other clubs. They cannot sign any UFAs unless one of theirs is signed by another team.

For the four clubs that lost in the divisional playoffs, in addition to having the ability to sign free agents based on the number of their own free agents signing with other clubs, they may also sign players based on specific financial parameters. Those four only will be permitted to sign one unrestricted free agent for $5.5 million (estimated) or more in year one of the contract, plus the number of their UFAs who sign with another team. They also can sign any unrestricted free agents for less than $3.7 (estimated) million in year one of the contract with limitations on the per-year increases.

In the case of all final eight teams, the first-year salary of UFAs they sign to replace those lost cannot exceed the first-year salary of the player lost with limitations on the per-year increases.

Before they were escorted out of Lucas Oil Stadium by security officials, Paul Kuharsky and Tim Graham revisited the AFC Championship Game.

INDIANAPOLIS -- There's no way to think beyond the pain when the incision still stings and the inflammation throbs.

The New York Jets weren't interested in talking about great accomplishments or exceeding logical expectations, not so soon after Peyton Manning's surgical performance drained their postseason life.

"It's too fresh of a wound to say anything to make yourself feel better," Jets safety Jim Leonhard said of any buck-up-little-camper talk.

The Jets' charmed season ended Sunday amid a blizzard of blue and white glitter fired from sideline cannons in Lucas Oil Stadium. The Indianapolis Colts came from behind to jilt the Jets 30-17 for the AFC crown.

"Everybody's disappointed that we didn't go to the Super Bowl, especially when we were this close," Jets left tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson said, almost spitting out the words. "We didn't do everything that we needed to win. But at the same rate, we did do a lot of great things.

"I can't even say we're second. Nobody wants to be third or fourth. Maybe in a week or two it will be different."

Implausible as it seemed before the game, the Jets looked like they would sabotage the coronation, giving the crowd of 67,650 a collective coronary by building an 11-point lead late in the second quarter.

Manning calmly swayed momentum before halftime and, by the third quarter, staked the Jets in the heart -- repeatedly.

"With Peyton Manning, if you can't disrupt his rhythm he's going to kill you," Jets coach Rex Ryan said, "and we couldn't disrupt it enough."

And so it ended for the Jets, their captivating run falling about 23 minutes short of the Super Bowl.

The Jets have plenty to be thrilled about for the future, but they couldn't bring themselves to consider any of it.

"It's hard to be proud right now, but we came a long way," left guard Alan Faneca mumbled with a dismissive shrug. "We fought through a lot of stuff. We came together as a team. Yeah, there's stuff to be proud of."

The Jets defied the odds over the past couple months.

They trudged onward without Pro Bowl nose tackle Kris Jenkins, Pro Bowl kick returner and running back Leon Washington and special-teams legend Larry Izzo, all lost to season-ending injuries along the way.

They helped rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez decipher the NFL in the nick of time. Even though Ryan declared them mathematically eliminated from the postseason race after Week 15, they won their final two games and received an astronomical amount of outside help to slip into the playoffs.

On the road throughout the playoffs, the Jets upset a pair of division champs to reach Indianapolis, known as the Crossroads of America.

The Jets might look back on Sunday as the crossroads of their organization.

"Maybe this football team needed to get here and have this experience in order to take the next step," Leonhard said. "We thought we were ready this year. Maybe we weren't. We have to take this experience and learn from it."

There were all sorts of reasons for Sunday's loss:

• Rookie running back Shonn Greene, their playoff MVP, suffered a rib injury in the third quarter and carried 10 times for 41 yards. The Jets' offense stalled in his absence, failing to score again.
• Inside linebacker Bart Scott's ankle injury carried into the game and rendered him "a one-legged man," Ryan said. Scott made two tackles.
• The Jets decided to use young cornerback Dwight Lowery instead of veteran Lito Sheppard, a move Manning said pleasantly surprised him. Nickel back Donald Strickland went down with a groin injury in the first quarter.
• Darrelle Revis playing like an All-Pro wasn't enough. Manning made Revis Island seem like Grenada.
• Jay Feely missed field goals from 44 yards and 52 yards, not only failing to score points, but also forfeiting prime field position.

Even so, dissecting what went into the final score of a single excruciating game is pointless when you have much broader issues to reflect upon and such a luminescent future ahead.

The Jets are an organization on the rise. As Leonhard mentioned a few times, "You never know when an opportunity like this is going to come again." But the Jets established themselves as a team to fear for years to come.

A foundation for long-term success is well in place. They're a defensive colossus and will get Jenkins back next season. The Jets might have the NFL's best offensive line, with Pro Bowlers from center to left tackle.

Perhaps even more significant, Sanchez grew up before our eyes over the final five weeks. He played with poise Sunday, completing 17 of 30 passes for 257 yards and two touchdowns with one interception that was overthrown but also tipped.

"Mark played great, and hopefully that's the thing that we're seeing from this point on," Ryan said. "You see that confidence that he has. He knows our offense. He's comfortable.

"When we come back, we'll be able to hit the ground running, which obviously is a lot different than how we entered this season."

We probably saw the baton passed from veteran running back Thomas Jones to Greene. Second-year tight end Dustin Keller emerged as a money target with a touchdown reception in each of their three playoff games.

"We're close. There is no question," Ryan said. "We accomplished a heck of a lot. We thought we could win it all. We really did. We don't need a whole lot."

Except maybe some time to heal.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Signs of growth abound for New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez.

His maturation process continued Sunday despite a heartbreaking loss to the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship Game.

"Mark Sanchez, I'm sure he surprised our entire team with his arm and his mechanics," Colts linebacker Clint Session said. "He didn't buckle under pressure at the beginning of the game. I give a lot of credit to that guy. He's got a bright future."

With running back Shonn Greene sidelined by a rib injury, Sanchez was more of a factor than he'd been in a couple months. For only the second time in nine weeks he attempted 30 passes.

Sanchez completed 56.7 percent for 257 yards and two touchdowns with one interception, a bad throw, but one that was tipped to Colts cornerback Kelvin Hayden.

Sanchez posted a 93.3 passer rating, his third-highest of the campaign in games when he threw more than 15 times.

His most remarkable numbers came on play-action passes.

ESPN Stats & Information tracked them all year. In the regular season, Sanchez ranked 43rd out of 51 quarterbacks who made at least 10 play-action attempts. He completed 51.7 percent with three touchdowns and seven interceptions for a 59.1 passer rating.

In the playoffs, however, Sanchez bamboozled defenses with play-action fakes.

He went 5 of 9 for 150 yards and a touchdown against the Colts. He heaved one play-action pass to Braylon Edwards down the left sideline for an 80-yard touchdown, a team playoff record.

All told in the postseason, Sanchez completed 62.5 percent of play-action passes for 287 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions and a 143.6 passer rating. Only Philadelphia Eagles backup Kevin Kolb had a higher rating in the regular season than that.

INDIANAPOLIS -- The New York Jets pushed for about as long as a team could without reaching the Super Bowl.

The Jets held a two-score lead in the first half and led by four points almost 37 minutes into their AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts.

The Jets couldn't land the knockout blow on the mighty Colts and eventually succumbed to Peyton Manning's pinpoint passes.

Manning delighted a record Lucas Oil Stadium crowd by leading the Colts back to a 30-17 victory and snuffing a magical Jets campaign that exceeded anyone's expectations outside of their own.

With the Super Bowl in sight, the Jets seemed to be a team of destiny. Head coach Rex Ryan declared them eliminated from the playoff hunt after a Week 15 loss, but the planets aligned and they slipped into the tournament. Then the Jets beat a pair of division champions on the road to reach the AFC title game.

The Colts rolled up 461 yards on the NFL's best defense.

The Jets' top-ranked pass defense allowed 153.7 yards per game in the regular season, but Manning fired all over the field for 377 yards and three touchdowns, two in the second half.

Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez was sensational for most of the day, completing a lot of difficult throws. He went 17-of-30 for 257 yards and two touchdowns with an interception.

New York's offense took a hit when running back Shonn Greene suffered a rib injury. Green was the offensive catalyst in the first two playoff games, but with him sidelined for much of the game, banged-up veteran Thomas Jones was forced to carry the load.

Jones finished with a team-high 42 rushing yards, a far cry from what the ground-and-pound Jets were used to all season.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Perhaps the New York Jets really are a team of destiny.

They're 30 minutes away from the Super Bowl.

In a situation even fewer people gave them a chance to survive than last week's playoff game in San Diego, the Jets lead the Indianapolis Colts 17-13 at halftime of the AFC Championship Game.

Jets kicker Jay Feely missed a 44-yard field goal attempt, or the Jets would be even further ahead.

The Jets caught the Colts secondary sleeping on two big plays in the second quarter. Mark Sanchez connected with Braylon Edwards for a Jets playoff-record 80-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter.

Jets receiver Brad Smith took a direct snap and launched a 45-yard pass to Jerricho Cotchery that set up another Sanchez touchdown toss, this time from 9 yards to tight end Dustin Keller.

The Colts finally scored a touchdown with 1:13 left in the first half. Peyton Manning orchestrated a rapid-fire drive to get the Colts within a score.

Great first half. Take a deep breath, Jets fans, and get ready for a wild second-half ride.

INDIANAPOLIS -- New York Jets receiver Braylon Edwards dropped a would-be touchdown bomb down the left sideline that could have been costly in the first round against the Cincinnati Bengals.

He didn't make the same mistake Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts.

Edwards silenced a record Lucas Oil Stadium crowd when he scorched Colts cornerback Jacob Lacey, cradled a long throw from rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez and went 80 yards for a touchdown to give the Jets a 7-3 lead with 14:45 left in the first half.

The play broke the Jets' postseason record for longest postseason pass play. Chad Pennington connected with Jerricho Cotchery for a 77-yard touchdown against the New England Patriots three years ago.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Swing on over to NFL Nation Live to chat throughout the AFC Championship Game.

Sunday's cast includes all four AFC bloggers -- Paul Kuharsky, Bill Williamson, James Walker and me -- and Scouts Inc. analyst Matt Williamson.

We'll be chatting throughout the game, providing updates and conducting polls. It should be a real hoot.

INDIANAPOLIS -- The NFL assigned Tony Corrente to referee the AFC Championship Game between the New York Jets and Indianapolis Colts in Lucas Oil Stadium.

A few notes about Corrente and his crew from the 2009 regular season:

• They called 211 penalties for 1,583 yards. The league average was 209 penalties and 1,466 yards.
• Flags were most commonly thrown for offensive holding (42) and false starts (36).
• Darrelle Revis and the rest of the Jets' defensive backs better be careful. Corrente's crew called defensive pass interference 17 times, second most in the NFL. But they weren't whoppers. The 224 interference yards ranked seventh.
• The nine face mask flags were one behind the most of any crew.
• The six defensive holding penalties were two more than the NFL low.
• Offensive linemen should be mindful that Corrente's crew keeps an eye out for tripping. The four calls led the league.
• Physical play is OK. The crew detected unnecessary roughness seven times, while six other crews called it double-digit times. Corrente's crew called only three personal fouls all season.