JETS STUN CHARGERS TO ADVANCE

In his final words to the team before it took the field Sunday for its AFC divisional playoff game, Rex Ryan predicted the next day's NFL headline: THREE HOME TEAMS WIN ... AND THE JETS! Everybody in the cramped locker room roared. "More wood on the fire," Jerricho Cotchery would say later. Now it can be printed in big, bold letters: The Jets are going to the AFC Championship Game. They made The News today, oh boy. In perhaps their greatest upset since Super Bowl III, the Jets took their rock 'em-sock 'em act on the road (again) and dismantled the high-scoring Chargers, 17-14, in a heart-pounding game at Qualcomm Stadium. The Jets are the uninvited guests to the NFL's final four, the fifth seed that wouldn't go home. Four weeks after being on the brink of elimination, they are on the verge of the Super Bowl. They reached the conference championship game for the first time since 1998 and - how's this for a delicious story line? - they face the Colts in a rematch of their controversial Dec. 27 win. The Colts could have eliminated the Jets that day, but they pulled Peyton Manning and sacrificed their perfect season. Will they rue that decision? "This is the matchup nobody wanted, but too bad," an ecstatic Ryan said. "Here we come." (New York Daily News)