There were some great games played this weekend and the Conference Championships are now set.
The home teams were victorious on Saturday with blowout wins and the visiting teams were victorious on Sunday in close games. As predicted, the best game (in my opinion) of the weekend was between Green Bay and Dallas.
NFC Results
On Saturday, the Seattle Seahawks were unable to stop Matt Ryan and the Atlanta Falcons and lost the game by a final score of 36-20. Ryan completed 70% of his passes for 338 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions. The Seahawks’ Thomas Rawls was unable to duplicate his rushing performance from last week’s wild card game, gaining only 34 yards on 11 carries, and Russell Wilson threw two interceptions. The Falcons will move on to the NFC Championship game to face the Green Bay Packers on Sunday afternoon.
The Packers were visiting Dallas and the rookie duo of Elliott and Prescott. The Packers jumped out to a 21-3 lead half-way through the second quarter, but the Cowboys came back to tie it up with the rushing of Elliott (125 yards for the game) and the excellent play of Prescott, Jason Whitten, and Dez Bryant. Rookie quarterback Dak Prescott hung in there with the seasoned veteran, Aaron Rodgers, and led the team to a 31-31 tie with 35 seconds left in the game. But as Rodgers has done for a long time, he took his team down the filed in a hurry and was able to get close enough for Mason Crosby to hit a 51-yard winning field goal as the last second ticked off the clock.
The Packers will travel to Atlanta to take on the Falcons, where Green Bay lost 33-32 back in October. This could be another close, high-scoring game. Both quarterbacks have been looking great so far and playing very well under the pressure.
AFC Results
Saturday night was just another notch on the belt for the New England Patriots, who have been making playoff winning look easy for a very long time. Tom Brady was knocked around a lot during the game and actually underperformed statistically. He completed less than 50% of his passes and threw two interceptions, which matched his total for the entire regular season. But those interceptions came off of tipped passes and he ultimately found his targets when it mattered most. Houston was unable to find an answer on offense and quarterback Brock Osweiler threw three interceptions in the game. The final score was 34-16 and the Patriots will host the Pittsburgh Steelers next Sunday evening.
In Kansas City, with a rescheduled game start time, the “Killer Bees” dominated once again. Ben, Bell, Brown, and...Boswell? Unable to score any touchdowns, the Steelers called on kicker Chris Boswell six times to get points on the board. Boswell hit all six field goals, including 3 over 40 yards. Le’Veon Bell had another dominating performance, piling up 170 rushing yards on 30 carries. The Chiefs were on the Steelers’ heels for the entire game, but fell short by a 2-point conversion to tie the game in the closing minutes.
Pittsburgh will be heading to New England to take on the Patriots. New England beat the Steelers in Pittsburgh 27-16 back in October. However, the Steelers did not have Roethlisberger and the Patriots still had Rob Gronkowski. This should be a great game regardless, and whatever the outcome, it should set up a great Super Bowl against the NFC champion.
With that, let’s get to the Free-For-All contest results!
Rewards, Winners, and Payouts
We had a total of 45 contestants this week, which is 13 more than the previous high! The totals earned from the Preview post were 40.319 SD and 295.874 STEEM. I sold the SD for STEEM at a price of around $0.135 per STEEM and received 289.403 STEEM, bringing the total to 585.277. I removed 35.277 STEEM to be carried over for the Super Bowl contest, so the rewards for the current contest totaled 550 STEEM.
The payout for each of the five statistical categories was 110 STEEM. These were the final stats and the winners for each category:
| Category | Results | Winner |
|---|---|---|
| Jones Receiving Yds. | 67 |  |
| Brady Comp. Percentage | 47.4 |  |
| Chiefs Yards Allowed | 389 |  |
| Elliott Yds. Per Carry | 5.7 |  ,  |
| Total FG Attempts | 21 |  |
Statistics are from NFL.com
The following contestants have received 110 STEEM each:
Due to the tie in the Ezekiel Elliott, Yards Per Carry category, these two contestants have received 55 STEEM each:
All transfers have been made and here is the proof of payout:
Only two contests left for the NFL season!
With 45 contestants this week, the distributions didn’t get around to as many people as a percentage. I’ll try to pick better categories with a higher chance of ties for the next two contests so that more users will have a chance to win some of the rewards. The lowest payout this week is valued at over $9 at current STEEM prices, while the highest payouts are valued at over $18.
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