Packers, Steelers pull NFL upsets.
Big games by QBs, especially Rodgers and Ryan, settle divisional rounds
Based on the way the NFL divisional round played out, Tom Brady is no better than the third-best quarterback of the final four heading into the championship round.
You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone more heroic than Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers, whose play in the final minute of a 34-31 road win Sunday over the Dallas Cowboys ranks with anything seen in the post-season — and that includes Bay Area icons such as Joe Montana and Ken Stabler.
Or anyone more ruthlessly efficient than Atlanta’s Matt Ryan, who completed 70.2 percent of his passes against the visiting Seattle Seahawks on Saturday for 9.1 yards per attempt and a passer rating of 125.7.
Those numbers, by the way, in a 36-20 win, were pretty
much his weekly performance over the course of a regular season that makes Ryan the presumptive favorite to be the NFL’s Most Valuable Player.
It sets up a delicious NFC championship game Sunday in Atlanta with a berth in Super Bowl LI on the line, a nice departure from the seemingly yearly Peyton Manning-Brady AFC matchups that so often took center stage in the postseason.
In the AFC, Brady had an uncharacteristic (for him, anyway) off day as the Patriots beat the Houston Texans 34-16 Saturday, a win that earned a home date against Pittsburgh, an 18-16 road winner at Kansas City on Sunday night.
Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, along with running back Le’Veon Bell, got his team in position for six Chris Boswell field goals to get one step away from his fourth Super Bowl.
Kansas City quarterback Alex Smith’s reputation as the erstwhile game manager was sustained when he had a game-tying 2-point conversion pass erased by a holding penalty, with his next pass falling incomplete.
For the Raiders and 49ers, the divisional results were cause for optimism in the East Bay and panic in Santa Clara.
All four games underscored the need for a quality quarterback, which the Raiders have in Derek Carr and the 49ers do not, whether or not Colin Kaepernick is on the 2017 roster.
Dallas also looks set for the foreseeable future, given the way rookie Dak Prescott (24 of 38, 302 yards, two TDs) led the Cowboys from a 21-3 deficit to tie the score at 28-28 and 31-31 before Rodgers made the game his own.
Rodgers, of course, was the Cal star bypassed in the 2005 NFL draft by the 49ers at No. 1 in favor of Smith and by the Raiders at No. 23 (even though there were scouts who had him as the best player on the board).
For all his brilliance against Dallas — and Rodgers was 28 of 43 for 356 yards and two touchdowns — there were two miraculous plays that stood out after the Cowboys had tied the score 31-31 on a 52-yard field goal by Dan Bailey.
With the Packers a their own 42 and 23 seconds left, Cowboys safety Jeff Heath came in from the blindside and hit Rodgers squarely in the back. Television replays suggested Rodgers never saw it coming. Somehow, he held on to the ball for a 10-yard sack.
With 12 seconds remaining, Rodgers escaped pressure to his left. Off his back foot, Rodgers threw a 35-yard strike that Jared Cook sank to his knees and caught at the sideline with three seconds to play.
Rodgers, at the postgame podium, dismissed the idea that it was the best throw of his career.
“I’ve made better ones, and I think I’ve made more athletic plays,” Rodgers said. “That was a combination of good protection, being patient in the pocket, and putting the ball where I wanted to, and Cookie made a phenomenal catch.”
Mason Crosby won the game with a 51-yard field goal that somehow squeaked past the left upright at the gun.
Ryan didn’t need the last-second heroics against Seattle, completing 26 of 37 passes for 338 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions.
While Rodgers is terrific in the pocket, he does his best work creatively when breaking outside and having his receivers break off their routes to his specifications.
Ryan, by contrast, is more Peyton Manning-like in his precision, executing plays exactly as they were drawn up and rarely going off script. A 99-yard, nine-play drive just before halftime, which ended in a 14-yard touchdown pass to Tevin Coleman, took much of the steam out of Seattle.
(The 49ers, by the way, had to like what they saw of Atlanta offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan. The Falcons’ level of execution offensively has not been seen by the 49ers since Mike Shanahan ran the offense during the Super Bowl season of 1994.)
As for Brady, he’s in familiar territory, playing in a conference title game for the sixth straight year — one more than Stabler from 1973-77 and an NFL record.
Brady completed 48.4 percent (18 of 38) of his passes against a strong Houston defense, the lowest postseason figure of his career, and had two interceptions. Brady threw only two interceptions in 12 regular season games.
Then again, Brady also was 5-for-6 for 145 yards and a touchdown on thirddown throws into the third quarter, including gains of 45, 48 and 26 yards on three plays that were all third-and-9 or more.
So the magic is still there. The difference this time is Brady isn’t the only one performing miracles.