The Colts D stepped up last time because they got punishing run stopper Bob Sanders back at safety, but he seems to have been MIA most of this season, so I'd be more worried about him than Freeney. The 31st rushing D was a TV stat, so either they got it wrong, I misheard it or the Colts improved it a little the last couple games. My guess would be it was a stat posted after they gave up 200 rushing yards to the Jets (best rushing team in the League, as you note) but before they held the Bills to about 30. Which raises another point: How good are the Jets, really? When they played Indy my Broncos had the 5th seed and looked good to go the playoffs, but the Jets leapfrogged a lot of people when they did what no one had done all year: Beat Indy because Manning and Co. were riding the pine. Beating an unbeaten team (by 2 TDs) gives you tiebreaks over a lot of people, but in this case I don't know how indicative it is of quality.

Interesting thing about the stats you posted though:

The Saints gave up almost twenty yards more than the Colts did, but gave up less on the ground, which, based on their records, encourages me to believe two things:

1) The Saints are better at stopping the run and

2) There was a lot more late desperation passing by teams the Saints had soundly beaten.

I don't really think comparing the Saints offensive production to the Colts defensive production (or vice versa) is sound; not only are they in different Conferences (obviously) but they played a grand total of five of the same teams (the AFC and NFC South happened to BOTH play the AFC East this year, otherwise their only common opponent would be the hapless Rams. )

Maybe I'm wrong; I flat out admit I'm not sold on the Colts D and never have been. They were at their best when they brought in Dungy as a guru to stop them bleeding points by the bucket while Peyton scored them by the bucket, and they STILL weren't good, just good enough (it helped that the Bears offense was as bad as the Colts D, but I concede that didn't get Indy to the Super Bowl. ) Dungy's gone and I don't think it goes that way this time; even your stats show the Saints offense can hang with Indys (to say the least; points matter a lot more than yards, and if you don't believe it ask the Vikings team that outgained New Orleans nearly two to one last week. ) I think their D is a lot better, Indy just wasn't forced to play the NFC East (which only had two wildcard teams this year instead of their usual three. )

The Colts ARE their offense to an even greater extent than the Jets and Ravens are their D, IMHO. If you can hang with Manning, you can beat them, but if you let them open a big lead and force you to pass that's when Freeney and the rest can do some damage. That's why the NY and Baltimore couldn't win when it counted: You don't shut Manning down, you SLOW him down and beat his sorry D. The Colts get their points, but you get more; that's the name of the game. Unless you're a LOT better than the other guy on one side of the ball or the other it favors the balanced team, and that's the Saints. If you want to put it in raw yardage terms the Saints are a net +22 over Indy, but the more important issue is they had 60 more net points against tougher regular season opposition, and since they gave up 40 more that means they scored a whopping 100 points more than the vaunted Indy offense. When a team is 25% better at what their opponent does best, against better opponents, I think they're the favorite.

We'll find out in about ten days, and if I'm wrong I'm on record and have to live with it, but I think whichever team won the NFC last week would beat Indy in a Super Bowl; Indys only real hope is more playoff experience. Again, IMHO.