Rodgers, Packers to host NFC title game
Chico native, Green Bay quarterback helps beat Rams to get conference title game at Lambeau
Green Bay’s veteran quarterback leads team to a 32-18 victory over L.A. Rams in divisional round game.
GREEN BAY, WIS. » Don’t tell Aaron Rodgers the lack of capacity crowds in a pandemic will limit the Green Bay Packers’ home-field advantage in the NFC championship game.
He’s been waiting too long for this moment to have any such negative thoughts.
Rodgers, the Chico native, threw two touchdown passes and also ran for a score as the topseeded Green Bay Packers beat the Los Angeles Rams 32-18 in an NFC divisional playoff game Saturday. He will play a conference championship game at home for the first time in his Hall of Famecaliber career.
“I’m definitely a little emotional, just thinking about what we’ve been through,” said Rodgers, the former Pleasant Valley High and Butte College standout who went 23 of 36 for 296 yards. “It got me emotional with the crowd out there today.”
Rodgers threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to Davante Adams and a game-clinching 58-yarder to Allen Lazard with 6:52 left. Rodg
ers also had a 1-yard touchdown run, the first by a Packers quarterback in a playoff game at Lambeau Field since Bart Starr’s winning sneak in the Ice Bowl against Dallas on Dec. 31, 1967.
The Packers (14-3) reached the NFC championship game for the fourth time in seven seasons as they chase their first Super Bowl berth in a decade. It will be their first NFC title contest at Lambeau Field since hosting for the 2007 season, when they fell to the New York Giants 23-20 in overtime.
Green Bay won the Super Bowl for the 2010 season as the NFC’s No. 6 seed, and has lost at Seattle, Atlanta and San Francisco in its last three conference championship game appearances.
Saturday’s game showed
what a home-field edge can mean. The Packers played in front of 8,456 fans — a crowd that included paying spectators for the first time all season — but that small crowd made plenty of noise as the Packers built an early lead amid snow flurries.
Rodgers said it felt like there were 50,000 fans. Running back Aaron Jones said it seemed more like 80,000, while Lazard added that “it felt like 90,000 honestly.”
That crowd chanted “M! V! P!” during the closing minutes to salute Rodgers.
“It’s hard to really put into words how special that feeling is, but you can feel it,” Rodgers said. “It’s so palpable. You can feel the energy in the stadium. It’s just different. It’s different playing in front of a crowd. It’s a little more special and obviously more sweet.”
Rodgers helped Green Bay’s potent offense overpower the Rams’ vaunted defense for much of the
day. The Packers didn’t allow any sacks despite playing without injured All-Pro left tackle David Bakhtiari, while Green Bay sacked Jared Goff four times.
Jones ran for 99 yards and a touchdown on just 14 carries, including a 60yard burst to open the second half. Rodgers called the Packers’ offensive linemen “the star of the game tonight.”
“Definitely not happy,” Rams defensive tackle Michael Brockers said. “A lot of the guys feel like it’s on them. ‘I messed up, or I failed you.’ Everybody had their hand in it. We just weren’t clicking on all cylinders.”
Goff was 21 of 27 for 174 yards and a touchdown less than three weeks after undergoing thumb surgery, and Cam Akers rushed for 90 yards and a touchdown. BILLS 17, RAVENS 3 » Taron Johnson could’ve kept running into next week on a 101-yard interception that carried Buffalo to its first
AFC championship game appearance in 26 years.
Johnson’s pick-6 of Lamar Jackson’s pass with 41 seconds remaining in the third quarter secured a win over Baltimore in a divisional-round playoff game.
The interception return matched the longest in NFL history and punctuated a stellar defensive outing in which Buffalo (15-3) limited the NFL’s top running offense to 150 yards on 32 carries.
Jackson was sacked four times and did not return after being evaluated for a concussion following the final play of the third quarter.
Facing second-and-10 at Baltimore’s 25, center Patrick Mekari snapped the ball over Jackson’s head. The quarterback turned and chased the bouncing ball down inside the 5, turned and quickly threw it away as Tremaine Edmunds had him by the legs and Trent Murphy fell down on top of him.