RESULTS – 2017 NFL Conference Championships and Free-For-All Contest
After two blowout victories in the conference championship games on Sunday, the Super Bowl teams are set.
Tom Brady will be playing for a potential record-breaking fifth Super Bowl ring and Matt Ryan will be trying to win his first. The New England Patriots abruptly ended the Steelers’ run by a score of 36-17. In Atlanta, the Falcons obliterated the hopes of Aaron Rodgers and the Packers in a 44-21 victory.
NFC Results
Although they were both banged up, Julio Jones and Jordy Nelson showed up to play hard on Sunday. Jones, who had been battling a toe injury, caught nine passes for 180 yards and two touchdowns. Nelson played with broken ribs sustained in the win over the New York Giants in the wild card round of the playoffs. He finished the game against the Falcons with six catches for 67 yards and a touchdown.
The Atlanta offense proved to be too much for the injury-riddled Packers defense. Matt Ryan completed 71% of his passes for 392 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions. The Falcons didn’t turn the ball over at all, which added to their ability to wear down the Packers defense and put together one scoring drive after another. Atlanta punted only twice during the game – once late in the second quarter and once late in the fourth. Every other drive resulted in scores.
Green Bay made some early mistakes that turned out to be very costly. Mason Crosby missed a field goal in the first quarter that would have made the score 7-3. Running back, Aaron Ripkowski, fumbled in the red zone as the Packers were trying to cut a 10-0 deficit early in the second quarter. A deep pass by Aaron Rodgers late in the second quarter was also intercepted at the Atlanta 32-yard line. The Falcons scored after all three changes of possession and took a 24-0 halftime lead.
The Falcons extended their lead to 31-0 before the Packers were able to finally get on the scoreboard, but it was ultimately too little and far too late.
Matt Ryan and Julio Jones will be leading their team against the Patriots in Super Bowl LI. This will be only the second Super Bowl appearance for the Falcons. In their previous trip, they lost to the Denver Broncos 34-19 in Super Bowl XXXIII, after the 1998 season.
AFC Results
Tom Brady and Bill Belichick did it again. By defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers at home Sunday night, they’ll both be making a record seventh appearance in the Super Bowl – Brady as a player and Belichick as a coach. They’re 4-2 in the previous six appearances. The Patriots franchise now has the record for most Super Bowl appearances with nine.
Brady and the Patriots won the game with some style. Brady completed over 76% of his passes for 384 yards and three touchdowns. The Patriots had zero turnovers and great production from receivers Chris Hogan and Julian Edelman, who racked up 17 catches for 298 yards and three touchdowns. They aggressively attacked the Steelers defense the entire game, foregoing much of their rushing attempts until their lead had become almost insurmountable.
On the other side of the field, Pittsburgh suffered an early loss of Le’Veon Bell due to a groin injury. With one of the league’s biggest threats eliminated, the Patriots were able to put more focus on the passing game from Ben Roethlisberger. Big Ben was able to put up more than 300 passing yards, but Antonio Brown was kept from making big plays and was unable to score a touchdown for a second consecutive week. DeAngelo Williams stepped in to try to make up for the loss of Bell – gaining 85 yards of offense and scoring one rushing touchdown – but it wasn’t enough to keep the Steelers close or to put pressure on the Patriot Defense.
Both teams actually moved the ball well and were able to convert on third downs (60% for the Steelers and 64% for the Patriots), but Pittsburgh turned the ball over twice and had trouble getting into the red zone and scoring.
At 39 years old, Tom Brady has put together an amazing season and played lights-out Sunday night. He’ll need one more great game this season as his team faces a very potent Atlanta offense. If the Patriots can pull off one more win, Brady will be all by himself as the quarterback with the most Super Bowl victories in league history, passing Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw.
And now to the Free-For-All contest results!
Rewards, Winners, and Payouts
We had a total of 36 contestants this week, which was less than the record 45 last week. The totals earned from the Preview post were 17.302 SD and 52.016 STEEM. I “converted” the SD to STEEM at a price of $0.153 per STEEM, which gave me an additional 113.09 STEEM, bringing the total to 165.106. I removed 15.106 STEEM to be carried over for the Super Bowl contest, so the rewards for the current contest totaled 150 STEEM.
The payout for each of the five statistical categories was 30 STEEM. These were the final stats and the winners for each category:
| Category | Results | Winner |
|---|---|---|
| Rodgers Rush Yds. | 46 | @tenfourgoodbuddy |
| Freeman Total Off. Yds. | 84 | @full-measure |
| Steelers Rush Attempts | 20 | @magnebit |
| Patriots 1st Downs | 26 | @full-measure |
| Total Punts | 10 | @ragnaros, @magnebit |
Statistics are from NFL.com
The payouts were broken down as follows:
@full-measure – 60 STEEM
@magnebit – 45 STEEM
@tenfourgoodbuddy – 30 STEEM
@ragnaros – 15 STEEM
All transfers have been made and here is the proof of payout:
There are only two weeks remaining in the NFL season.
We had two multiple winners this week, so the rewards only reached four users total. Congratulations to the winners and thanks to everyone for playing. I’ve decided to do a contest for the Pro Bowl next Sunday with a few easier stats to predict in order to spread some of the payouts around to more users, so be sure not to miss it!
Please share these posts with your followers, friends, and family – especially those who have not yet joined Steemit! Bring them here, get them involved, and let’s grow the platform, all while having some fun doing it!
Special thanks to @blocktrades for supporting and sponsoring this Steemit community event!
Follow me: @ats-david
Well, this is going to be tough! I'm from Boston and have been following the Pats since there have been Pats! On the other hand, I'm a huge Matt Ryan fan and have been rooting for him since college...Hmmmm
You can hope for Ryan to have a good game, but then cheer for the Patriots to win? That should work, right?
Yeah...but I'd love to see Matty Ice have a Superbowl ring. Brady has several and I don't think the Falcons have made it this far. I could be wrong.
Falcons lost to Denver in Super Bowl XXXIII. That was their only trip.
That was a bit before Matty's time. Wasn't Chris Chandler QB for Atlanta? If I remember right it was Elway vs Chandler. That was awhile ago!
Thanks for running this! I did horribly this week but I still had fun rooting for these stats. It was especially great because the games were terrible. Atlanta is better than I thought. Congrats to the winners!!! Thanks again!
I thought the games were good, but then again, I like decisive victories. I can always get behind a good blowout or two. The fact that the two winning teams didn't turn the ball over is what I like. When a team can dominate by playing almost flawless football, I have to appreciate it. This Super Bowl may turn out to be better than I expected. I was hoping for the Packers out of the NFC, but I think the Falcons can really test the New England defense. No home-field advantage either, so it could be a good one.
There is something to be said for appreciating greatness. But I don't know if I would have made it past halftime if I didn't have a little bit of a rooting interest because of these prop bets and fantasy (thanks for that!). So I guess I got to see real greatness this weekend. I am definitely interested in the game. I was kind of bored by Atlanta before... but that performance kind of woke me up.
Yeah, same here. I think they can really put some pressure on the Patriots defense. Even if New England can take Jones out of the game, they'd still have a lot more to account for. And Atlanta doesn't turn the ball over much. Could be another high-scoring game.
Agreed. And Jones is tough to take away. The Patriots have always liked to clutch and grab a bit knowing that the refs don't want to slow down the Super Bowl with a ton of flags... but Jones is so strong that the defenders might actually get the worse of that type of strategy. One of my favorite things to do for the Super Bowl is to bet the over no matter how high it is. I only make a small bet and then I get to cheer for every score. Some people look at betting as a science. I'm not that skilled at it so I just use it as a way to enhance my enjoyment of a game.
Thanks Again for putting this on.
No problem. Congratulations on the win!
I'll be pulling for Atlanta. I'm sure they will be the underdog. It's not that I don't like the Patriots I just don't like Belichick or Brady. I was hoping for Green Bay vs. the Steelers but that didn't work out so well...
Well, I'd kind of like to see Brady win a fifth ring and go out on top. But I do think that Atlanta will be tougher than most people may have expected prior to the playoffs.
Ya'll know who is gonna win this. The best team EVER!
The Patriots!
You know it. Hey uh Brady how many rings will you have in two weeks from now?
Yeah - Brady and the rest of the team is looking pretty damn good this year. What do you think the next "scandal" will be? Accusations of Brady taking HGH or steroids? They have to come up with something. It's been two years already.
Well we all know Brady has got the best HGH from Brazil in the game, but thanks to it being shipped to his supermodel wife they will never catch him.
I don't know, like I always say, if you ain't cheating you ain't trying.
Belichick was caught on film performing #AlarmGate before the Steelers game setting the alarm off at 3 am, here is the photo they got of him on CCTV from the hotel:
Oh, wow. He is very villainous with that mustache. He should grow one in real life.