In Sunday’s battle between the NFL’s two front-runners for the regular-season MVP Award, Matt Ryan and his Atlanta Falcons soared well past Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers, 44-21, for the Falcons’ second-ever Super Bowl appearance in their 51 years of existence.
Ryan saved one of his best performances of the season for last indeed, as he was thoroughly methodical in dissecting Green Bay’s secondary en route to 392 passing yards and four touchdowns on 27-of-38 passing. Not only that, but Matty Ice also had a superb 14-yard rushing TD to put the Falcons up 17-0 early on.
The Packers never managed to get within striking distance, as the 24-0 Atlanta lead was the biggest halftime deficit that Rodgers himself had to overcome in his NFL career. And while Ryan made it look effortless in completing passes to nine of his receivers on Sunday, it was top wideout Julio Jones who shone the brightest as many had expected with nine catches for 180 yards and two scores.
There’s really no slowing down Atlanta’s offensive freight train of doom, as the team has racked up over 420 yards and no less than 28 first-down conversions in each of their two playoff games thus far. Not only that, but its much-maligned defense from the regular season has also upped its game at the right time. The Falcons’ D forced two turnovers in each of the two postseason bouts after generating just 22 takeaways in the regular season (16th in the NFL). And to complement that statistic, the team hasn’t turned the ball over on offense in four-straight games as well.
A lot of similarities can actually be drawn out from Atlanta and New England’s respective matchups on Sunday (which we’ll get into more detail later), but there’s one fact that slightly tips the scales in the Falcons’ favor heading into Houston. The underdogs have managed to cover 11 of the last 15 Super Bowls, with eight of them winning outright and with the Patriots being losers in two of their last three trips to the final dance within that span.
Not to be outdone by the Falcons, the New England Patriots also downright dominated the Pittsburgh Steelers in Sunday’s primetime showdown, 36-17. That victory now gives New England its third AFC title in six-consecutive conference championship games to date.
Tom Brady will likely lose the regular-season MVP Award to Ryan when all is said and done, but the 39-year-old ageless wonder once again proved that he’s arguably the best quarterback to ever play the game of football in spite of his current age and all the hubbub about his four-game suspension from the Deflategate scandal’s aftermath. Brady broke his personal and his team’s own playoff passing record with 384 yards (32-of-42 on completions) to go with three touchdowns, which also extends his own NFL record of 11 300-yard passing games in the postseason. On top of that, TB12 is now tied with Joe Montana as the only QBs with nine three-TD games in the playoffs.
There’s more: not only did Brady pull a Matt Ryan on Sunday by throwing to nine different New England receivers, he even got not one but two of his wideouts to reach the 100-yard receiving plateau at that. Main target Julian Edelman caught eight passes for 118 receiving yards and a TD, while Chris Hogan had an even better outing with his nine receptions for 180 yards and a couple of scores. Hogan, by the way, made history himself by having the most receiving yards in a single playoff game for an undrafted wide receiver.
With both the Pats and the Falcons packing explosive offenses as we speak, it stands to good reason that Super Bowl 51 will be a shootout like no other (hence the relatively high over/under line of 59.5). However, most people forget that the Patriots had the best scoring defense in the regular season at just 15.6 points allowed per game, and that unit certainly clamped down on the Pittsburgh’s own prolific arsenal. New England held the Steelers to just 2.7 yards per carry on 20 rushing plays and didn’t allow a Pittsburgh touchdown until only less than three minutes remained in the contest.
Then again, Pittsburgh’s lead back Le’Veon Bell missed most of Sunday’s clash after suffering a groin injury late in the first quarter, so only time would tell if this unit can contain Atlanta’s two-headed backfield of Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman – the two combined for 165 all-purpose yards and two TDs against the Packers.
Not only that, but something tells us that the football’s karmic balance will bite the Pats in the rear when all is said and done. Apart from Deflategate and the Spygate conundrum from 2007, the Steelers also cried wolf when a fire alarm went off at their hotel in New England before Sunday’s game. A dumb fan was already suspected to be behind this ordeal, but you can never count out the possibility that it was none other than this man who was the heinous mastermind all along… right?
Writer’s Prediction
Against all odds (including the ones coming directly from Vegas), the Falcons (+3) grind out a 35-31 Super Bowl victory for the ages as they celebrate their first-ever Lombardi Trophy in franchise history.
