Fireworks expected in Georgia Dome send off

ATLANTA — The talk and the rage is all about points — a massive amount of points.

So many talking points focus on the points.

The NFC Championship has been ballyhooed more as a scoring-fest than the last hurdle to vault to make it to Houston for Super Bowl LI. One more point attained Sunday afternoon by the Falcons inside the Georgia Dome puts that franchise in the big game for the first time in 18 years. One more point scored by the Packers puts the green and gold of Green Bay back in the Super Bowl — an institution former head coach Vince Lombardi helped popularize by winning the first two — for the first time in six years.

All it will take is one more point by one team to eliminate the other. Given the pedigrees and most recent success of the quarterbacks, Aaron Rodgers of the Packers and Matt Ryan of the Falcons, and the deficiencies of the two defenses, points could come early, often and easily.

The over-under of 60 points is staggering, but logical. To wit: This is the first playoff game in NFL history in which both teams come in having scored 30-plus points in each of the previous five games. It has been 42, 41, 33, 38 and 36 points for the Falcons. It actually has been a six-game scoring spree for the Packers: 38, 30, 38, 31, 38 and 34 points.

No wonder when the Falcons met early in the week, offensive coordinator, Kyle Shanahan walked into the meeting room and said, “I don’t know if we’re going to have to win 6-3 or 40-37.’’

Assume the second score is closer to being accurate.

The Falcons are the highest-scoring team in the NFL, the Packers are the fourth-highest. Neither defense did much dominating: The Falcons were 27th in scoring defense, the Packers 21st.

If recent history is a guide, a shootout awaits. On Oct. 30, the Falcons beat the visiting Packers, 33-32, in a game that featured a combined seven touchdown passes by the two quarterbacks, including an 11-yard Ryan-to-Mohamed Sanu strike with 31 seconds remaining for the game-winner.

“Well, they’re a complete offense,’’ Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. “They’ve been on an incredible roll. You look over the course of the season, not only the production … really the thing that jumps off the film is the consistency. They’ve been doing it at this high level the whole year.’’