Final Four, NFL-Style

My favorite Sunday of the sports year is in sight, with the day becoming even more special because of the 49ers first appearance in the NFC Championship since 1998, when they lost to the Packers 23-10.

As my fellow Conference Championship watchers Nick Pazoles and Chris Williams have both said as well, this weekend is our favorite weekend of sports because it usually has two very competitive games featuring high quality teams. This stands to reason that you have to be really good to make it this far, but the NFL always seems to find itself locked into tight battles come their version of the Final Four.

In the last 4 years, the NFC Championship has featured competitive games in all 4 tilts, including a pair of overtime games. These 4 games were all decided by a touchdown or less. On the AFC side of things in that time span, the games have had slightly larger deficits but were no means blow outs.

AFC Championship

Baltimore +7 at New England - Fresh off of its first playoff win since the 2008 AFC title game, New England enters the playoffs on a 9 game win streak. Tom Brady has been his usual self in tearing apart opposing defenses. His 6 touchdown passes last week made quite the statement against the NFL's most polarizing player/team in the Denver Tebows. Meanwhile, on Baltimore's side of things, much of the talk this week has been about internal critiques of their QB Joe Flacco by future Canton member Ed Reed. While I think much of this talk leading up to games is garbage, no need for this small distraction.

I think this will be lower-scoring than what New England will be accustomed to, but they will still prevail. Baltimore covers, New England wins a tight one 24-20.

NFC Championship

NYG +2.5 at San Fran - When New England wraps up their game, much of the post-game talk on CBS and pre-game talk on Fox will be, "Is there going to be a rematch of the 2008 Super Bowl?" My answer, if predictions have anything to say about them, is No.

If you've been watching or reading anything ESPN-related, you'd think the Giants would be the favorites. Not sure how much of this has to do with a well-perceived East-Coast bias that many people complain about, but it is quite noticeable how much the Giants are being talked up despite having lost to the Niners earlier this year and their inconsistency/lapses during the season - which saw them beat some of the NFL's best as road warriors (Patriots, Packers) while losing to inferior opponents like the Redskins (twice) & Seahawks.

I took a look at some highly public sites (ESPN, CBS Sports, Fox, Covers...to name a few) & one local prediction from each town's newspaper area and compiled 38 different analyst's picks for the NFC Championship game. A whopping 27 of 38 picked the Giants to win.

It's weird that a 14-3 team who just ended a 9-game winning streak of a well-regarded foe can feel like an underdog, but here the Niners are....again. I have no problem with this perception from the public that the Giants will come out victorious.

In fact, recent history shows that one of the road teams should win - 9 of this century's 12 Super Bowls have featured at least one team who won on the road in the Conference Championship weekend. If a road team is going to win this weekend, chances are it will be the Giants.

I'll go against this trend and say that the Niners win a battle that will be highly dictated on the play of their special teams. The Pro Bowl duo of Akers & Andy Lee will provide the Niners with the points/field position that they will need, as San Fran will ride to its sixth Super Bowl appearance.

Niners win 23-17 and advance to Indianapolis.

As crazy as it sounds, I may have a chance to go to Indy for the game (my ultimate Sports Bucket List item) - I'll get into that later. I'll really only consider it if the Niners win.

Enjoy the games everyone!