The Falcons seized the National Football Conference title by easily handling the red hot Green Bay Packers 44-21 in a fitting farewell to their home field at the Georgia Dome where they have played in since the 1992 season.<\/p>\n
Quarterback Matt Ryan threw for 392 yards and four touchdowns, while star wide receiver Julio Jones hauled in nine receptions for 180 yards and two touchdowns.<\/p>\n
The win gave the Falcons their second conference championship since 1998, when they went on to lose Super Bowl XXXIII (33) to the Denver Broncos.<\/p>\n
The Patriots had just as easy as a time with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the American Football Conference championship game.<\/p>\n
Future Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady threw for a personal career postseason high and franchise record 384 yards and three touchdowns in a 36-17 win.<\/p>\n
Wide receiver Chris Hogan caught nine passes for 180 yards and two touchdowns.<\/p>\n
The Patriots will play in their seventh Super Bowl since 2001.<\/p>\n
After the game, the 39-year-old Brady stressed the “mental toughness” he and his team showed throughout the season after the star quarterback and four-time Super Bowl champion was suspended for the first four games of the season.<\/p>\n
The Falcons went 11-5 during the regular season and the Patriots had a league best 14-2 record.<\/p>\n
But Atlanta does not appear to be intimidated by the Patriots, who have set the mark of excellence in the NFL over the course of nearly two decades.<\/p>\n
“We will be confident for sure,” Ryan said following his team’s win.<\/p>\n
Ryan and Brady are favorites to win the league\u2019s Most Valuable Player Award that will be announced Feb. 4, the day before the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n
When they kickoff in Houston for the game, it will be the first time the Falcons and Patriots will face each other in a Super Bowl.<\/p>\n
The two teams last went head-to-head Sept. 29, 2013, in Atlanta, where the Patriots won 30-23.<\/p>\nError, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 9)<\/span>\n Anadolu Agency<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Atlanta Falcons will face the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI (51), after both teams won their NFL conference championships games Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":58582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,127],"tags":[39716,45078],"class_list":["post-58580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-sport","tag-nfl","tag-super-bowl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}