The NFL playoffs standings are left with four teams in the postseason, with the Seattle Seahawks taking on the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC championship game and the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots playing in the AFC championship game in a matchup of Tom Brady and Peyton Manning at quarterback and those games will be on Sunday.
Both championship games are rematches from the regular season and the Seahawks and the Niners are playing for the third time this year after splitting two games over the 2013 schedule, each team winning at home. The fact that the Seahawks are so dominant at CenturyLink Field makes them the favorites heading into the matchup, but the 49ers played very well against the Carolina Panthers and are a team that could upset Seattle. Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson are two of the best young quarterbacks in the game and they will face off against one of two grizzled veterans in Peyton Manning or Tom Brady in the Super Bowl in MetLife Stadium.
The Seahawks got a great game from Marshawn Lynch on Saturday against the Saints with 140 yards rushing and they will need another performance like that again to keep things going. Wilson knows how to move away from pressure and is great off play action and he is a quarterback that can win a game without having to do too much and the Seahawks defense will have to keep a lid on Kaepernick. The Niners lost in Seattle 29-3 this season but in that game Michael Crabtree was still sidelined and he will be back in full force this time around.
The Seahawks lost in the Bay Area on a last second field goal and they have lost just one game at home over the past two seasons and are 16-1 in that span and now one more game means the Super Bowl. Many predictions had these four teams in the finals spots heading into the championship games and the Niners may have been the two seed had both these teams not come from the same division, so basically there are matchups of the top two teams in each conference, with the one-two seeds in the AFC and the one-five in the NFC.
The Patriots and the Broncos are going at it for the second time this season and in that game Brady led his team to a big comeback in the second half of the game and won it overtime. Legacies will be cemented on Sunday with Brady and Manning going at it again and predictions have the Broncos and the Seahawks making it into the Super Bowl.