Tom Brady vs. Ben Roethlisberger. Aaron Rodgers vs. Matt Ryan.
Quite a quartet of QBs is heading to the NFL’s conference championship games next weekend: Brady’s New England Patriots host Roethlisberger’s Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC, and Rodgers’ Green Bay Packers play at Ryan’s Atlanta Falcons in the NFC.
Consider the collective bona fides: Among them, Brady, Roethlisberger and Rodgers can boast of 10 Super Bowl appearances and seven titles, four Super Bowl MVP awards and four regular-season MVP awards. Not too bad.
Ryan, never a Super Bowl participant, is the least-accomplished member of the final four, but he just so happens to be the quarterback on the All-Pro team this season and the favorite to collect league MVP honors.
Brady and Rodgers also figure to get some votes for that accolade, which will be handed out the day before the Super Bowl in Houston on Feb. 5.
These four guys would love to be in town for that game, of course.
Rodgers and Ryan moved closer to playing for the Vince Lombardi Trophy with terrific divisional-round performances, none more thrilling than Green Bay’s 34-31 win over the Dallas Cowboys.
Running to his left, and running out of time and territory on a third-and-20, Rodgers whipped his wrist for a 36-yard completion to tight end Jared Cook, who barely managed to scrape the toes of each shoe inbounds before tumbling to the sideline with 3 seconds remaining. That set up Mason Crosby’s game-ending, tiebreaking 51-yard field goal.
“This one’s special,” Rodgers said. “More special than we’ve had around here in a while.”
All Ryan did Saturday was throw for 338 yards, three TDs and no interceptions to beat the Seattle Seahawks 36-20.
The AFC quarterbacks were not as impressive as their NFC counterparts this weekend, but did enough to get by.
Roethlisberger threw an end zone interception and failed to produce a TD, but Chris Boswell’s postseason-record six field goals helped the Steelers get past the Kansas City Chiefs 18-16 on Sunday. Brady was picked off twice — equaling his season total — but the Patriots still defeated the overmatched Houston Texans 34-16 on Saturday.
Each conference title game is a rematch from this season.
Rodgers and Ryan engaged in a thrilling showdown in Week 8 on Oct. 30, when Atlanta edged Green Bay 33-32.
Rodgers threw for four TDs, one more than his foe, and ran for 60 yards, but Ryan got the last word by connecting with Mohamed Sanu for an 11-yard score with 31 seconds to go. A week earlier, Brady and the Patriots won 27-16 against a Steelers team missing the injured Roethlisberger.
Here’s a closer look at next Sunday’s matchups:
PACKERS AT FALCONS, 3:05 p.m. EST, Fox (opening line: Atlanta minus-4)
That loss 2½ months ago to the Falcons began a four-game skid for the Packers that dropped them to 4-6. Rodgers insisted he didn’t think Green Bay was done, and look at it now: eight consecutive victories and a second NFC title game in three years.
Ryan and Atlanta are also on an impressive run, winning five games in a row by scoring at least 33 points each time — and he has 14 TD passes and zero interceptions in that span.
“They are good at what they do,” Packers linebacker Nick Perry said. “We are going to look at the film and go over it and make sure we prevent as much as we can of those … explosive plays.”
This could be another high-scoring game, with players such as Julio Jones, Taylor Gabriel, Randall Cobb and Davante Adams causing problems for a pair of defenses that are not all that special.
STEELERS at PATRIOTS, 6:40 p.m. EST, CBS (opening line: New England, minus-5½)
New England is in its record sixth consecutive AFC title game, 11th overall for the duo of Brady and coach Bill Belichick. They’ve had a relatively easy path so far this season, which began with a four-game “Deflategate” suspension for the 39-year-old QB, but Pittsburgh’s defense and versatile offense could present a challenge.
Steelers RB Le’Veon Bell already has run for 337 yards in two playoff games, while WR Antonio Brown has a pair of 100-plus-yard games, too.
New England is missing TE Rob Gronkowski, but its star in the divisional round was Dion Lewis, who became the first player in the Super Bowl era with TDs via catch, run and kick return in a postseason game.
Count on Belichick to make his players pay after a lackluster game against Houston.
“We have a lot of work to do. We made a lot of mistakes,” Lewis said. “I’m glad we got a win, but in order to advance next week, we’ve got to play a lot better.”
Pats’ McDaniels staying put
Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels expressed appreciation for the opportunity to interview with the San Francisco 49ers but says for now he will remain in New England.
He said during a conference call Monday that the decision was what’s “best for my family and myself” and that he will stay with the Patriots to focus on this year’s playoffs and finish out the season “however it turns out.”
McDaniels, who was a head coach with the Denver Broncos in 2009 and 2010, interviewed with the 49ers during the Patriots’ bye to open the playoffs. He also interviewed with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Both McDaniels and Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia have been candidates for teams with open head coaching jobs this offseason after helping lead the Patriots to 14-2 regular season.
New England beat the Houston Texans 34-16 in the divisional round and will host the Pittsburgh Steelers in Sunday’s AFC championship game.
Steelers’ video causes stir
So much for Antonio Brown and the Steelers keeping a low profile.
The star wide receiver filmed the postgame scene in the Steelers’ locker room on Facebook Live after an 18-16 win at Kansas City on Sunday, a video that lasted more than 17 minutes and had over 900,000 views just a few hours after it aired.
Brown talks to fans in the video, thanking them for their support while joking around with teammates, many of whom are changing out of their uniforms. The Steelers then have a team prayer, followed by coach Mike Tomlin addressing his players.
Tomlin isn’t seen in the video, but can be heard telling the Steelers that they need to start preparing for the Patriots and next Sunday’s AFC championship game. He uses some expletives, including using a vulgar term to describe the Patriots.
Tomlin also tells his team to “keep a low profile.” Another member of the team is heard saying, “Keep cool on social media. This is about us, nobody else.”
All while Brown kept rolling for hundreds of thousands to see.
NFL teams are often very protective of what goes on in their locker rooms, so it’s surprising Brown chose to go live — and for that long.
About halfway into the video, the media arrives in the locker room for interviews. Brown continues to film, with a few teammates making cameos before he signs off.
Sunday playoff TV ratings
Green Bay’s 34-31 win over Dallas was seen by an average of 48.5 million on Fox, the most-viewed NFL divisional playoff game ever.
The game Sunday had a 26.1 rating and 46 share, the network said Monday, the highest-rated NFC divisional game since 1997. The rating is the percentage of television households tuned to a program, and the share is the percentage watching a telecast among those homes with TVs on at the time.
Pittsburgh’s 18-16 victory over Kansas City, shifted to prime time Sunday night because of bad weather, was seen by 37.4 million people on NBC and its digital platform, including 37.1 million on the network.