NFC Championship Game Open Thread

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we're about two hours away from the kickoff of the NFC Championship Game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Atlanta Falcons.

These are the top two seeds in the conference, so there's not really much of a story for how the two of them got here. The Niners took out the Green Bay Packers last Saturday night by a score of 45-31 behind the arm and legs of Colin Kaepernick. The bright lights weren't too much for the second-year signal caller from Nevada, as he passed for 263 yards and two touchdowns, and added 181 yards and two more scores on the ground.

On Sunday afternoon, the Falcons decided to make things markedly more interesting against the Seattle Seahawks. The Falcons took a 20-0 lead into halftime, and led 27-7 going into the fourth quarter of play. Seattle then mounted a furious comeback behind rookie Russell Wilson, scoring 21 straight points and taking a 28-27 lead with under a minute to play. However, Falcons' quarterback Matt Ryan calmly led the Falcons down field, and put the Falcons in position for a 49-yard Matt Bryant field goal that provided the margin of victory in Atlanta's 30-28 win.

Vegas says that the Falcons are a four-point underdog, despite having this game at the Georgia Dome.

It should be an interesting game, but in the end I think the Niners are going to pull this one out and get one step closer to their sixth Super Bowl championship. I'll go with a score of 30-24, San Francisco.

You can discuss this one here, folks. . .like I said, we're about two hours from kickoff on FOX. We'll have a separate thread for the AFC Championship Game at about 3:30 PM Central, two hours before the scheduled start of that game. Here are some preview videos from the folks at SB Nation to tide you over until game time. Also, if you want to get some more perspective from both teams, you can check out Niners Nation and The Falcoholic.