ATLANTA — Quarterback is said to be the most difficult position to master in all of sports. How is it then that Aaron Rodgers last night made it look so incredibly easy?
Elevating his performance each time he flicked his wrist, practically hand-delivering the ball into the hands of his receivers, Rodgers turned the Georgia Dome into his own indoor playpen as he carried the Packers to yet another impressive road playoff victory.
Rodgers — escaping trouble with his legs and pumping fastballs with his arm, looking eerily like a young Brett Favre — was flawless and often brilliant and the Packers followed his lead, scoring 35 consecutive points to catch, pass and rout the No. 1 seed Falcons 48-21 in an NFC divisional playoff blowout. The impressive win officially stamps the Packers as a threat to keep playing into February.
As the No. 6 seed in the conference, the Packers (12-6) needed to win their final two regular season games simply to gain admittance as a wild card into the postseason and now they show no sign of leaving any time soon. They followed up last week’s taut 21-16 victory over the Eagles in hostile Philadelphia with an overwhelming display against the well-rested and now-ousted Falcons.
The home team never had a chance. Not with Rodgers completing an outrageous 31 of 36 passes for 366 yards and three touchdowns — and one rushing TD — for a rating of 136.8. As a result, the Packers scored touchdowns on five straight possessions.
“Yeah, this probably was my best performance,” Rodgers said. “The stage we were on, the importance of this game, yeah, it was a good night.”
Good night? Good grief.
“I just got into a rhythm not only throwing the football but moving around the pocket,” Rodgers said. “It’s just a special night.”
Rodgers’ three scoring passes give him six in two playoff games this season and 10 in his first three career postseason games — the most of anyone in NFL history. He connected on eight of the 10 passes he targeted to Greg Jennings, all eight he threw for Jordy Nelson, all six for Donald Driver and all four he directed toward James Jones.
“It’s awesome having a guy like that who’s throwing the ball as well as he was throwing it,” Jennings said. “We talk about swagger all the time, seriously we were walking on the field like they cannot stop us. Any third and long situation we felt we were going to convert it, any second and long situation we felt we were going to get enough to get the first down. And we did it.”
This was a colossal failure for the Falcons, who earned the No. 1 seed in the conference with a 13-3 record and gained home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. That postseason existence lasted only one game.
“I don’t know who that team was,” Falcons cornerback Dunta Robinson said. “That’s not how you want things to end.”
The party keeps going for the Packers, who will hit the road again for the NFC Championship game, either in Chicago or Seattle, now one game away from Super Bowl XLV in Dallas.
A No. 6 seed has never made it to the Super Bowl out of the NFC — the Packers are vying to become the first. They did it with a virtuoso performance by Rodgers and ball-hawking defense from cornerback Tramon Williams. They did it by surging to a 14-point halftime lead even though they trailed 7-0 in the first quarter and 14-7 after Eric Weems early in the second quarter brought a kickoff return back an NFL post-season record 102 yards for a Falcons touchdown.
From that point on, the Packers took it to the NFC’s top-seed. Rodgers put in close to a perfect half, completing 18 of 21 passes for 234 yards and two touchdowns, spinning away from defenders, throwing lasers on the run, hitting his receivers in stride. A 1-yard touchdown run by John Kuhn made it 14-14 and as the Falcons took over and started moving the ball again it sure looked as if a shootout was brewing.
Then the shootout went flat. Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan in the last 2:22 of the first half was intercepted twice by cornerback Tramon Williams, the second one returned 70 yards for a touchdown as the final seconds of the half expired, giving the Packers a 28-14 lead.
It never got any better for the Falcons.
