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The two conference championship games this weekend figure to be a pair of classic matchups, with both games being played at outdoor venues in cold weather cities, meaning that the games will feature real, knock-down drag-out football, rather than the sanitized dome stadium games. In the divisional round games last weekend, I managed to pick 3 of the 4 winners, with the only incorrect choice being the Patriots-Jets game, which was easily the biggest upset of this post-season. Here are the picks for the 2 title games set for Sunday:

Green Bay at Chicago – two of the oldest NFL franchises, and two of the proudest, duke it out for the right to go to the Super Bowl. Both teams have solid defenses, and this should be a bone-chilling hard hitting game, played in the cold at Soldier Field. Both coaches deserve a lot of credit for getting their teams this far – Bears’ coach Lovey Smith was coaching to save his job early in the year, but had the guts to add former head coaches like Mike Martz, Mike Tice and Rod Marinelli to his staff, and the moves paid big dividends as the club came together to win the NFC North title. Packers’ coach Mike McCarthy overcame a slew of injuries to key players all year long, including offensive weapons RB Ryan Grant and star TE Jermichael Finley, and kept his team focused enough to sneak into the playoffs with a win over the Bears on the season’s final weekend. The Bears were the only team among the top seeds that used the bye week to their advantage – New England and Atlanta came out completely flat and were beaten, while the Steelers needed a total meltdown by the Ravens to overcome a 21-7 deficit to win their game. That tells me that coach Smith, who guided the Bears to the Super Bowl just a few seasons ago, will have his team prepared. However, Green Bay appears to be peaking at just the right time, playing outstanding football on both sides of the ball. QB Aaron Rodgers has been unstoppable, and Dom Capers’ defense has been outstanding. I believe Rodgers is head and shoulders a better QB than Chicago’s Jay Cutler, and his play will be the difference as the Packers win and advance to Dallas for the Super Bowl.

New York Jets at Pittsburgh – the Steelers, who have won more Super Bowls, six, than any other franchise, and are loaded with talent on both sides of the ball, should be heavy favorites to win this game over the brash, upstart Jets. Pittsburgh has the best, most physical defense in the NFL, and QB Ben Roethlisberger has already won 2 titles in his short career. The Jets, however, are pulling this off for the second straight season, so they are not a flash in the pan. When you look beyond all the trash talking, New York has a defense that may be just as physical as Pittsburgh’s, and has better cover people in the secondary than the Steelers do. Roethlisberger is a bull who makes plays using his strength as much as his arm, but Jets’ QB Mark Sanchez is starting to make believers out of the skeptics who say his inexperience holds the team back. Both teams have solid running games. I believe the difference in this game will be which team has more success running the ball, and which team protects its’ quarterback better. In other words, which team has the better offensive line. The answer to that question, in my opinion, is the New York Jets. They are solid across the line, while the Steelers have battled injury problems, especially at the all-important tackle positions, all season long. My pick in this game is the Jets, in a hard-fought, low scoring defensive battle, possibly decided by a big play on special teams, where the Jets also have a distinct edge.