It certainly wasn't a boring route to NFC Championship weekend, but it's a traditional, 1-vs.-2 match-up this coming Sunday between the Atlanta Falcons and San Francisco 49ers to see who will face either the Baltimore Ravens or New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVII. This is part one of our preview of the first game on Sunday afternoon.
San Francisco disposed of the Green Bay Packers in a two-possession victory over the weekend. Colin Kaepernick recorded the single-game high for rushing yards by a quarterback (181) in the Niners' 45-31 win. Before the QB ran for a single yard, he threw an interception that Sam Shields returned for a Green Bay touchdown. Just 3:47 later though, Kaepernick ran for his first of two rushing touchdowns and eventually threw for two more.
The Falcons scored the first 20 points against the Seattle Seahawks, taking a 20-0 lead to the half, but a historic 21-point fourth-quarter comeback almost cost Atlanta the game. A three-play, 41-yard drive engineered by Matt Ryan and a 49-yard field goal with eight seconds left put the Falcons back on top by the final score of 30-28. If the Seahawks hadn't tried to ice Atlanta Placekicker Matt Bryant, they very well could have headed to San Francisco for a third game against the Niners this year. Seattle head coach Pete Carroll called a timeout just before Bryant missed a field goal. On the second attempt (and only one that counted) Bryant nailed it, and the defense stopped a last-second Hail Mary with an interception in the endzone.
The Falcons and Niners never played each other this season, and shared only one common opponent: the New York Giants. The Falcons blew the Giants out 34-0 in Week 15. The 49ers fell to the Giants in mid-October, 26-3. The New York squad ended both the Falcons' and 49ers' respective 2012 playoffs campaigns. (Atlanta lost 24-2 loss in the Wildcard Round and San Francisco went down 20-17 in overtime in the NFC Championship.)
Later this week, we'll delve into the last playoff match-up between these teams, discuss the evolution of the squads since and share some more stat & story nuggets.
- Contribute to this Story:
- Send us a tip
- Send us a photo or video
- Suggest a correction
