It’s Conference Championship Sunday, and suddenly the most casual fan in the New England region is keeping an eye on the clock.

The world stops at 3 p.m. Sunday. Your New England Patriots are one win away from the Super Bowl.

Read that over again. Imagine if that prediction had been made back in August or September, you’d have been searching to get the prognosticator to the guys in white coats as soon as possible.

Someone asked yours truly when was the first sign that these Patriots might be better than anticipated. It was the blowout win over Carolina at Gillette Stadium. First, no one thought that the Panthers were going to be a playoff team. But the win was so decisive, it was what a good team should do to a bad team. It was a 42-13 beatdown that the Patriots had not enjoyed in a few years. That signaled that the Patriots were starting to get it, they were becoming accustomed to how they would operate as a team, as an offense, as a defense, etc.

That’s where things started. The Patriots were becoming a good team.

Then, when they beat the Bills 23-20 in Buffalo, it signaled that they could become a playoff team. That they could win a tough game on the road, which they later would all season.

And guess what? The AFC title game is a tough game on the road. But was we all know, not nearly as tough as it could have been as old friend Jarrett Stidham is taking snaps for Denver instead of Bo Nix. Or is it? We’ll find out.

In other words, its not exactly Brady vs. Manning, a matchup of four AFC Championship Games. Drake Maye vs. Bo Nix certainly would have put more pressure on the Broncos to hold serve with the No. 1 seed to grab the conference title.

Now, the feeling in Denver is they don’t have much to lose. We disagree. The season they had, they’ve got home field at Mile High, etc.

“I think he (Stidham) sees things really well,” Patriots coach Mike Vrabel said. “I think he’s athletic enough to extend, like we talk about a lot of quarterbacks. Accuracy. I think the decision making – he’s really decisive in the games that we went back and watched. This is even going back to when I was in Tennessee as well.”

Heck, that’s because it may have been the last time the guy played. This year he’s taken four snaps, knelt down on one. Hasn’t thrown an NFL regular season pass in over two years. But you know what? We bet he’ll play better than C.J. Stroud did last Sunday. But that’s a pretty low bar.

Speaking of which, here are your Conference Championship picks:

PATRIOTS 27, BRONCOS 13

The Broncos are banged up besides losing Nix. They have three heathy receivers – Courtland Sutton, Marvin Mims, Jr. and our favorite, Lil’ Jordan Humphrey who was with the Patriots in camp. Not exactly murderers row. And forget running the football. Everyone forgot how good the Patriots are against the run with a healthy Milton Williams in the lineup. He’s made a world of difference as the Patriots have simply shut down the opposing ground games, putting the ball in the hands of a Chargers’ Justin Herbert with a broken left hand, a complete joke of a QB in Stroud, and now they have a chance to tee off on Stidham. We’ll see how he handles it.

The formula remains the same: Pick the better QB. We all know who that is.

RAMS 30, SEAHAWKS 28

Can we get the Super Bowl matchup of the likely MVP vs. the QB who probably should have won it? The Rams won’t have to deal with the bitter cold, they’ll have to deal with a Seahawks defense that held the 49ers and Brock Purdy to six points.

But while Denver lost Bo Nix, Seattle has lost running back Zach Charbonnet. Now, he’s not All-World but his presence certainly would have helped Sam Darnold.

Sam Darnold in the Super Bowl? It’s that kind of crazy season but we’re thinking the Rams can taste it.

LAST WEEK: 3-1

PLAYOFFS: 6-4

FINAL REGULAR SEASON: 83-43

Tom King may be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com. Also, follow King on X (@Telegraph_TomK).