With trips to the Super Bowl on the line this weekend for
four teams, time to take a look at what’s on the line for each team in action
on Sunday:
Seattle Seahawks:
We’ll start with the defending champs.
After a 31-17 win over Carolina in the divisional round Seattle is set
for a date with Green Bay in a rematch of the NFL’s season opener back in
September.
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| Otto Greule Jr./Getty Images Richard Sherman (left) and Earl Thomas are the leaders of Seattle's defense commonly refferred as to the Legion of Boom. |
With a win: Seattle has a chance to become a legitimate
dynasty by winning its second straight Super Bowl this year. This is a game the Seahawks are supposed to
win. In doing so, they can seat themselves
in the throne as the kings of the NFC having won back-to-back conference
championships.
With a loss: Seattle going down at home this weekend would
certainly be taking a step backwards. In
the middle of the regular season, Seattle lost back-to-back games against
Dallas and St. Louis, survived games against Carolina and Oakland and lost to
Kansas City and there was some doubt as to if Seattle would even make the
playoffs. But since the November 16 loss
to Kansas City, Seattle has regained its championship form having won seven games in
a row on the heels of its elite defense and looks like the team that won the
Super Bowl last year. A loss for the
Seahawks still keeps them in the group with the rest of the NFC’s upper echelon
heading into next season, but going through Seattle to get to the Super Bowl
may not be as daunting.
Green Bay Packers: The
Packers were blown out in the season opener at Seattle. Will it be any different the second time
around?
With a win: This could go down as the kind of performance
we’re still talking about years down the line if Aaron Rodgers goes into
Seattle and beats the defending champs on a bad calf. He got hot in the second half against Dallas
last week but Seattle’s defense is on a different level than what Aaron Rodgers
saw last Sunday at Lambeau Field. A big
game from Eddie Lacy would certainly help take the load off of Rodgers. A win here would go down as the best of
Rodgers’ career besides his Super Bowl victory over Pittsburgh four years ago
and it would give Rodgers two weeks to heal up for the Super Bowl.
With a loss: The
Packers have the least on the line this weekend. Most experts are expecting them to lose given
the circumstances surrounding Rodgers’ calf and just how well Seattle is
playing go into this game. They’re in a
situation where they could go out and play with nothing to lose and just see
what happens. If the Packers come up
short, then they’ll enter next season as the favorites in the NFC North anyway,
will likely be viewed as the second best team in the NFC and could be picked to
face Seattle in the NFC title game again next year.
New England Patriots:
After surviving a scare last week against Baltimore, Tom Brady and Bill
Belichick are in their ninth conference championship game together.
With a win: Much like Seattle had a bit of a letup in the
middle of the season, New England started the season very shaky. The Patriots lost two of their first four
games against Miami and Kansas City and looked bad in a 16-9 survival against
Oakland in week three. After the
Patriots were blown out by the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium 41-14 on Monday
Night Football, many began to question if the end of the road for Tom Brady and
Bill Belichick had finally arrived. Not
so fast. New England won 10 of its final
12 games to clinch home field advantage in the AFC playoffs. Favored to win this game at home against an
Indianapolis team in some unchartered territory in the post Peyton Manning
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| Winslow Townson/Associated Press Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are still winning playoff games. But over the last decade, they've had some disappointing losses. |
With a loss: Doubt
would begin to creep back in about the Patriots if they are upset at home. While it is Brady and Belichick’s ninth AFC
championship game together as I mentioned, it would make 10 straight seasons
without a Patriots Super Bowl and it would be fair to question if Brady and
Belichick will ever win another one together.
Since defeating the Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX, the Patriots have lost
two super bowls they were favored in against the New York Giants, lost to the
Mark Sanchez quarterbacked Jets at home in the playoffs, and lost to Baltimore
at home by double digits twice in the playoffs.
A loss Sunday would be another disappointing playoff defeat, which has
become a common way for the Patriots to end their season since their last Super
Bowl title.
Indianapolis Colts:
In Andrew Luck’s third year under center, the Colts have made progress, but can
that progress continue and take them to Phoenix?
With a win: After winning on the road against Peyton Manning
and the Denver Broncos last week, Andrew Luck and company look to knock off
another future hall of fame quarterback this weekend in Foxboro. It would be quite a statement by Luck and the
Colts to win back-to-back road playoff games against Peyton Manning and Tom
Brady’s teams to head to the Super Bowl.
While Peyton Manning certainly didn’t look like Peyton Manning last
week, the Colts played a good road playoff game and will have to do the same
thing this week. Andrew Luck has won
three playoff games in his three years quarterbacking the Colts so far. Should the fourth come on Sunday, it would no
doubt be the best of his young career and might perhaps set him up with a Super
Bowl showdown against another quarterback drafted in 2012, Seattle’s Russell
Wilson.
With a loss: I don’t
think a loss would diminish how anyone feels about Indianapolis moving
forward. The Colts were viewed as a team
that would win a bad AFC South and maybe win a playoff game or two. That’s what they’ve done so far. While a loss here would raise some questions
how Indianapolis can get to the next level and become elite, it would mark the
end of what has been a pretty solid season for the Colts. With the future in Denver very much up in the
air, Indianapolis could easily head into next season as a top two or three team
in the AFC.
Enjoy Championship Sunday!
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