The consensus among Billick, Mike and Mike II was the Colts were one of those teams you didn't want to see coming in the playoffs, for a variety of reasons. The consensus was they were a real threat to make a Super Bowl run out of the wild card spot, hitting the road like the Giants and Steelers before them and not stopping until Tampa.

And once again I thought: I don't get this.

I don't get it the way I don't get Steve Carell.

I don't get it the way I don't get texting, BlackBerrying, and most aspects of iPhoning.

Sure, I get the logic. It's the Hot Team Wins Out theory: The Giants found their metaphoric center last year about this time, and the Steelers did it in 2005. Now come the Colts - winners of six in a row and beginning to coalesce around Peyton Manning, who's starting to look as scary and Terminator-like as ever.

So the narrative is they struggled early, and it made them playoff-tough and now they're hitting their stride. They whipped New England and Pittsburgh back-to-back to turn around their season, and now Peyton's in full Kabuki hand-gesture mode under center, first beguiling defenses and then carving them up like a Christmas turkey.

How do you bet against all that, in an AFC that's more a B-Plus FC?

Beats me. Maybe I just crave the abuse of people who paint their upper bodies blue and profess eternal devotion to Jeff Saturday.

Whatever it is, I'm looking at that aforementioned road to Tampa, and it still looks more like the highway to hell to me than the pathway to heaven. I see the Colts having to go into Pittsburgh in January and win there for a second time against a physical team that's gone 10-3 against a brutal schedule. Or I see them having to go into Baltimore to face a Ravens defense that's given up 20 points in its last three games and looks nothing like the defense the Colts ball-peened 34-3 earlier in the year.

And then there's Tennessee, which despite the blowout loss to the Jets is still the best team in the AFC and more ideally suited to January Football than either Pittsburgh or Baltimore. All they do is play defense, run the Football with gusto and throw it with discretion. Who does that remind you of?

(A brief pause here while we field calls from Tom Coughlin, Brandon Jacobs and Eli Manning).

As for the Colts ... yeah, they've won six straight, but they haven't exactly laid waste to anyone but the terminally horrific Bengals, which hardly counts.

Five of their six wins have been by a touchdown or less. Four of them have come at the expense of teams with a combined record of 16- 36. In a 10-6 victory at dreary Cleveland, they couldn't summon so much as an offensive touchdown.

And, yes, the weather was lousy that day. But it's not likely to be ideal in Pittsburgh, either, come January. Or in Baltimore. Or even in Nashville.

The Colts in the Super Bowl?

I'm not off the rails enough to suggest it can't happen. I just like everybody else's chances better.

On the other hand, I'm the guy who just got a text message from one of those Jeff Saturday worshippers, and I've just figured out what "omg" means.

It's short for, "Oh my God, ur stpd."

Indianapolis vs. Detroit

When: 1 p.m. Sunday

TV: Fox

Radio: 1190 AM