In what was probably one of the more exciting weekends of football in recent memory, the NFC playoffs has sent its two top seed to the NFC Championship game to see who earns the right to go to the Super Bowl.
On Saturday, the San Francisco 49ers opened up on the Green Bay Packers in the second half, ultimately pulling away 45-31 in a final score that was not even quite that close.
Then on Sunday, the Atlanta Falcons withstood a furious Seattle Seahawks comeback for the ages that forced quarterback Matt Ryan to engineer a game-winning field goal drive with 31 seconds to go to finally put down the only wildcard team to advance by the slim margin of 30-28.
Coming into the game, few knew what to expect from 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. The second year player was given the starting nod over Alex Smith in the 9th game of the season, and he helped lead the team to a bye week in the playoffs.
But he’s never played in the playoffs before, and when he threw a pick six early in the game, the naysayers began to creep in. He answered by not only matching, but surpassing Aaron Rodgers’ performance, passing for over 250 yards and two touchdowns.
However, it was his legs that made the difference on the day as that Packers defense had no answer for his mobility. Kaepernick carried the ball 16 times during the game for an NFL record 181 yards for a quarterback in addition to scoring two rushing touchdowns of his own.
Meanwhile, Seahawks rookie quarterback Russell Wilson ultimately outplayed Matt Ryan, and even gave his team the lead with less than a minute to play, but it was not enough.
He threw two touchdown passes and ran for another in the second half, and came close to 400 yard through the air, but Ryan made the most of the 31 seconds he was given to work with. Placekicker Matt Bryant hit a 49-yard field goal to win it all, thus ending the playoff losing streak of the Falcons, and setting up a great matchup between the Falcons and the 49ers in Atlanta next week.
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