NFL Playoff Action
I have a feeling we are in for a memorable Super Bowl in a few weeks.
Given the four teams remaining in the NFL playoffs after this past weekend’s divisional round, we’re in for a “can’t miss” Super Bowl.
Based on the four remaining teams, we’re in for a compelling Super Bowl, because there isn’t an uninteresting team in the group that will resume play this Sunday. At stake are slots in Super Bowl 55 in Tampa.
Sunday’s conference championship games feature matchups largely because of the quarterbacks leading each team, the Packers and Aaron Rodgers hosting Tom Brady’s Buccaneers in the NFC and the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes hosting the Bills and Josh Allen in the AFC.
With those names at quarterback, it really does not matter who wins on Sunday. We will be left with a great Super Bowl matchup.
Tampa Bay against the Chiefs would feature Brady playing in his 10th Super Bowl and seeking to win his seventh while Mahomes, would be trying to win his second in a row as the Chiefs try to become the first team since Brady’s 2003-04 Patriots to defend its title.
The Packers against the Bills would feature Rodgers trying to win his second Super Bowl and the Bills trying to win their first as a franchise, ending the misery of having been to the Super Bowl four times without hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.
The Buccaneers against the Bills would feature Brady against Allen, who’s made the most significant strides of improvement from last season to this year and, like Mahomes, is part of the new breed of star quarterbacks in the league.
Without question, the best storyline this Sunday is Brady against Rodgers. The two have met head-to-head only three times, with Brady holding a 2-1 edge. In those three games, Brady was 61 of 97 for 805 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions and Rodgers was 64 of 116 for 787 yards, four touchdowns and two interceptions.
The Buccaneers against either the Chiefs or Bills would mark the first time in Super Bowl history that a team plays the sport’s ultimate game in its home stadium, with Super Bowl 55 being played at Raymond James Stadium.
Let’s talk about Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Aaron Rodgers.
Brady, in his 21st season, is the all-time NFL leader with 581 touchdown passes and ranks second in career passing yards with 79,204. He also has a 97.3 career passer rating, which ranks seventh all time.
Rodgers, in his 16th season, ranks third in the NFL in career passer rating at 103.0 and is seventh all time in passing touchdowns with 412 and 11th in passing yards with 51,245.
Mahomes and Allen are the heir apparents to Brady and Rodgers. Between the two of them, Mahomes is the more accomplished. He owns a 38-8 regular-season record and is 4-0 in the postseason. Dating back to November 2019, Mahomes is 25-1. This season, he threw 36 touchdowns to only six interceptions and had a passer rating of 108.2.
Allen emerged this season. He went from completing 58.8 percent of his passes in 2019 with 20 touchdowns and nine interceptions in 2019 to completing 69.2 percent with 37 touchdowns and 10 interceptions this season.
Enjoy this weekend and we will preview what should be a memorable Super Bowl next week.
