I saw an interview from a player recently where he said losing the Super Bowl was a worse feeling than going 3-13; that to get that far and come up empty was as bad as it gets. He knows better than me, but I would think losing in the conference championship game would be worse. At least getting to the Super Bowl you get the two weeks of the experience -- everything an NFL player, coach or team wants right up until the actual game. Losing in the championship game you just go home, same as the teams that ended their season in Week 17.
But I'm not an ex-player or coach or anything, so what do I know. What I do know is a Falcons-Patriots Super Bowl seemed very possible -- likely -- to me before the playoffs started. New England, obviously, and Atlanta with the draw that seemed likely to send them a badly flawed Seattle team, while Dallas had to deal with a dangerous Packers or Giants team. And here we are.
Falcons 44, Packers 21.I sort of like seeing teams get what they deserve. So while I feel bad for Aaron Ripkowski committing a costly fumble that was probably the key play in that game (if there was one key play), Green Bay had been trying to get by with a converted wide receiver, journeyman and fullback in the ground game for half a season, and it's not stunning it would catch up to them. The team didn't run the ball well and it was facing an offense that has two really good running backs and passes it as well as they do. Neither team was great defensively, but Atlanta was home and has a slightly better pass rush. Watching the game you never thought Green Bay was out of it at 17-0 or even 24-0, but when Atlanta quickly scored the long TD to open the second half, it was just one long clock-killing after that. Julio Jones is great (somehow I did 5 daily lineups without squeezing in a Ryan-Julio stack, just foolish of me) and not at all surprising Green Bay couldn't cover him. The way Julio and Dez went off against this secondary the last two weeks makes Odell Beckham Jr. look even worse in retrospect. I think Atlanta could have won in Dallas too, but am thinking the way the Falcons marched easily through the Packers time and time again has to make Dallas feel even worse in retrospect.
The Falcons remind me a little of the Greatest Show on Turf Rams; they only have one great wide receiver, true, but their quarterback is playing as well as we've seen a quarterback play maybe ever, and they've got a really nice pair of running backs and a very good line. And that's enough to mop up the NFC and, I think, win a Super Bowl. But we'll talk about that plenty over the next two weeks.
Patriots 36, Steelers 17. I wish there was more to talk about here, but unfortunately this was the game a lot of us feared. Roethlisberger didn't play particularly well in a road game. Antonio Brown couldn't escape blanket coverage. And Pittsburgh's ordinary defense couldn't get enough stops. The key play here, I guess, was when Jesse James nearly caught a touchdown, that might have made it a 17-14 game, but was instead (correctly) ruled short of the goal line, and Pittsburgh proceeded to butcher the next three plays, turning 1st and a foot into 4th and 10 and a field goal. There was some noise after that, but bottom line is it's another year when some team let the Patriots steal away a player they that team didn't get enough out of (Chris Hogan) and proceed to make that player a key component in a Super Bowl run. Yawn.
Sure Pittsburgh losing LeVeon Bell early on was a factor. But Pittsburgh wasn't going to run all over the Patriots anyway, and they weren't going to win a track meet, either. They need to get this game at home and/or improve on defense, or they're not going to have a chance against New England. And while I like Eli Rogers, around the time they decided he was their best No. 2 option in the passing game was around the time it was obvious they weren't going to measure up against the Patriots. Look at the bright side, had the Steelers somehow managed to win yesterday we'd have got about the worst possible Super Bowl imaginable. Instead we should have a good one.
Which we'll start talking about tomorrow.