Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Pack home for NFC championship game
First for QB Rodgers after victory over Rams
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Aaron Rodgers made sure he’d play an NFC championship game at home for the first time in his Hall of Fame-caliber career.
Rodgers threw two touchdown passes and also ran for a score as the top-seeded Green Bay Packers defeated the Los Angeles Rams 32-18 in an NFC divisional playoff game Saturday.
Mostly, Green Bay’s potent offense overpowered the Rams’ vaunted defense. 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.
The Packers reached the NFC championship game for the fourth time in the last seven seasons as they chase their first Super Bowl berth in a decade. It will be their first 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 homefield advantage can mean, even with far less than capacity on hand because of the pandemic. 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 with snow flurries falling for much of the first half.
“It’s special. There’s absolutely nothing like it,” Rodgers said. “We have really missed that part of this experience. To run out of the tunnel tonight with fans was unbelievable. It’s hard to explain how much the presence means on the field and just having that energy from the crowd.”
Rodgers was 23-for-36 passing for 296 yards, while Aaron Jones ran for 99 yards and a touchdown on just 14 carries.
For the Rams (11-7), 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.
The Packers (14-3) scored on each of their first five series and led 25-10 early in the third quarter. Even when the Packers began a drive at their 25 with 29 seconds and two timeouts left until halftime, Rodgers threw long completions to Davante Adams and Robert Tonyan to set up Mason Crosby’s 39-yard field goal as time expired.
Green Bay also settled for Crosby’s 24yard field goal after having first and goal at the 4 on its opening series. The other three drives resulted in a 1-yard touchdown catch by Adams and 1-yard scoring runs by Rodgers and Jones.
“Definitely not happy,” Rams defensive tackle Michael Brockers said of his team’s defensive performance. “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.”
Rodgers’ TD run was 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.