As a member of the Sports Media Conglomerate, I feel like I must begin this article with an apology. Football fans: I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that we've only had about one-and-a-half competitive football games so far this postseason. Trust me, next year, when Yardbarker gets a seat at the shadow cabal meeting that decides what happens during every NFL games, we'll make sure that the playoff games are a bit more exciting.
For now, however, we'll have to content ourselves with some high-flying games that were incredibly entertaining, if not competitive. If you missed any of the action, we've enlisted OutKast to help you catch up.
It's emotionless, every single year.
Bill Belichick doesn't need anyone to rub his shoulders, scratch his dandruff, or lovingly cut the sleeves off of his hoodie to dominate the AFC season after season. Sure, his coaching style is cold and ruthless, but it's also incredibly effective. I mean, can you argue with the results?
Yesterday, the Patriots set the record for most team Super Bowl appearances with nine all-time. Tom Brady set the record for most Super Bowl appearances by a player. Bill Belichick set the record for most Super Bowl appearances as a head coach. You might not like it, but sometimes the "Love Hater" wins out in the end.
Hey, did you know that Chris Hogan only played one season of college football at Monmouth University? Did you know that he was originally a lacrosse player? Did you know that he went undrafted, and that the Patriots were the only team to truly give him a shot at the big time?
Well, if you didn't, Jim Nantz, Phil Simms, and pretty much every analyst ever were happy to remind you those facts about three billion times during last night's game.
Now, to be fair, Chris Hogan had a great game, and the praise he has been getting is deserved – he has been an incredibly skilled seam-route-runner with Gronkowski out. But it's not like Chris Hogan came out of nowhere. He has been a legitimate receiving threat all season, so just keep that in mind when the talking heads start spinning their narratives out of nothing.
By the time Le'Veon Bell went out with a groin injury, the game was starting to get out of hand. It's hard to say whether or not his absence was really the thing that allowed the Patriots to pull away from the Steelers during the second half. There's plenty of blame to go around – the Steelers' zone defense was soft and exploitable all day, and their offense made countless mistakes.
That said, there's no denying that with Bell out of the game, the Steelers' offense was one-dimensional. The lack of a legitimate running threat allowed the Patriots' secondary to key in on – and shut down – Antonio Brown, and leave Ben Roethlisberger without any real options. And at the risk of being too on-the-nose here, it really is a bad note for the Steelers to go out on. This wasn't the team we saw during the regular season.
Whenever you feel down and need a pick-me-up, remember that as bad as it is, at the very least, Julio Jones doesn't have any reason to be angry with you.
Jones was a Very Bad Man last night, becoming the first player ever to notch more than one 150-yard, two-touchdown performance in a conference championship game. And he did it with a combination of strength, speed, and finesse that is incredibly, incredibly rare.
Much has been made of his amazing touchdown catch where he was miraculously able to get both feet in bounds, but far more impressive to me was his 73-yard catch and run, an NFL Blitz-style run featuring liberal use of the turbo button, the juke button, and most notably, the turbo button.
Oh, and did I mention that he wasn't even at 100% health during the game? He'll be terrifying during the Super Bowl.
Listen, I thought it was silly too. Next to Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady, how could Matt Ryan have a chance at the MVP award?
But after postseason performances like this one, it's clear that this Falcons team deserves their spot in the Super Bowl, and that no matter what happens during the big game, that Matt Ryan deserves the MVP award. Sure, he has a whole bunch of help from an incredibly deep receiving and rushing corps, but his decision-making has been impeccable this entire postseason.
And now, he has the ability to lead the NFL's best offense to the Falcons' first-ever Super Bowl win. If that doesn't make you say "O-yea-yurrr", I don't know what will.
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