{"id":6318,"date":"2016-01-17T22:50:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T06:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/sunday-nfl-action-afc-and-nfc-championship-games-are-decided\/"},"modified":"2016-01-17T22:50:00","modified_gmt":"2016-01-18T06:50:00","slug":"sunday-nfl-action-afc-and-nfc-championship-games-are-decided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/sunday-nfl-action-afc-and-nfc-championship-games-are-decided\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday NFL Action: AFC And NFC Championship Games Are Decided"},"content":{"rendered":"

By The Associated Press<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

Peyton Manning gets to face his biggest nemesis for one more shot at glory. Get ready for Brady-Manning XVII.<\/p>\n

The NFL’s only five-time MVP earned one more and possibly final game against his rival by leading the Denver Broncos to a come-from-behind 23-16 win over Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers on a blustery Sunday.<\/p>\n

That set up an AFC championship game next weekend in Denver against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.<\/p>\n

Just before kickoff Sunday in Denver, a strong wind blew over the Rocky Mountains, wreaking havoc on passes and kicks alike, although Broncos’ Brandon McManus tied an NFL playoff record by converting all five of his field-goal attempts and Chris Boswell of the Steelers made all three of his.<\/p>\n

Manning’s teammates dropped seven passes but also came through in crunch time. Denver is 10-3 in games decided by seven points or fewer, and Manning said being battle-tested helped them on this blustery night<\/p>\n

With Denver down 13-12 with less than 10 minutes left, cornerback Bradley Roby, burned time and again, punched the ball from Fitzgerald Toussaint’s arms and teammate DeMarcus Ware recovered at the Denver 35-yard line.<\/p>\n

“Perfect timing,” Roby said.<\/p>\n

Toussaint, who scored his first career TD in the first half, took it hard and blamed himself.<\/p>\n

“This is not all on him by any means,” Roethlisberger said. “It’s on all of us.”<\/p>\n

After Toussaint’s fumble, Manning went to work, driving Denver to its only touchdown, a 1-yard run by C.J. Anderson, followed by Demaryius Thomas’ catch on the 2-pointer that put Denver ahead 20-13 with three minutes left.<\/p>\n

That was Manning’s 55th game-winning drive in the fourth quarter or overtime, extending one of the dozen NFL records he owns.<\/p>\n

Carolina Panthers Hold Off Seattle’s Comeback<\/strong><\/p>\n

Four games into his playoff career, Cam Newton recognizes the key element to success. He calls it “Big Mo,” and there couldn’t have been a better example than Carolina’s 31-24 victory over Seattle on Sunday in Charlotte, N.C.<\/p>\n

Emphatically backing up their superb regular season with one of the most dominating halves in football history, the Panthers then hung on in the face of a furious Seahawks rally before surviving.<\/p>\n

“The playoffs bring out more than any other time the impact of ‘Big Mo,'” Newton said after Carolina (16-1) moved into NFC title game, which they will host next Sunday against Arizona (13-3). “Momentum.<\/p>\n

“We can’t wait for no one to make plays for us.”<\/p>\n

The Panthers, winners of 12 straight at home, made all the right plays in building a 31-0 lead, then were dominated by the two-time defending NFC champs in the second half. So if Carolina wins its first NFL championship, it can credit the lesson learned from the Seahawks (11-7).<\/p>\n

“We have to find a way to complete a full game of football,” the All-Pro quarterback added. “We have been known to take our foot off the throttle and we have to find that killer instinct.”<\/p>\n

Newton noted how players, coaches and even the fans were feeling the pressure in the final 30 minutes as Seattle staged a relentless comeback.<\/p>\n

This will be the Panthers’ fourth trip to the NFC championship game, and their first time as host.<\/p>\n

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org\/content-only\/faq.php#publishers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Source:: http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2016\/01\/18\/463437744\/sunday-nfl-action-afc-and-nfc-championship-games-are-decided?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=sports<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peyton Manning gets to face his biggest nemesis for one more shot at glory. Get ready for Brady-Manning XVII.<\/p>\n

The NFL’s only five-time MVP earned one more and possibly final game against his rival by leading the Denver Broncos to a come-from-behind 23-16 win over Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers on a blustery Sunday.<\/p>\n

That set up an AFC championship game next weekend in Denver against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.<\/p>\n

Just before kickoff Sunday in Denver, a strong wind blew over the Rocky Mountains, wreaking havoc on passes and kicks alike, although Broncos’ Brandon McManus tied an NFL playoff record by converting all five of his field-goal attempts and Chris Boswell of the Steelers made all three of his.<\/p>\n

Manning’s teammates dropped seven passes but also came through in crunch time. Denver is 10-3 in games decided by seven points or fewer, and Manning said being battle-tested helped them on this blustery night<\/p>\n

With Denver down 13-12 with less than 10 minutes left, cornerback Bradley Roby, burned time and again, punched the ball from Fitzgerald Toussaint’s arms and teammate DeMarcus Ware recovered at the Denver 35-yard line.<\/p>\n

“Perfect timing,” Roby said.<\/p>\n

Toussaint, who scored his first career TD in the first half, took it hard and blamed himself.<\/p>\n

“This is not all on him by any means,” Roethlisberger said. “It’s on all of us.”<\/p>\n

After Toussaint’s fumble, Manning went to work, driving Denver to its only touchdown, a 1-yard run by C.J. Anderson, followed by Demaryius Thomas’ catch on the 2-pointer that put Denver ahead 20-13 with three minutes left.<\/p>\n

That was Manning’s 55th game-winning drive in the fourth quarter or overtime, extending one of the dozen NFL records he owns.<\/p>\n

Carolina Panthers Hold Off Seattle’s Comeback<\/strong><\/p>\n

Four games into his playoff career, Cam Newton recognizes the key element to success. He calls it “Big Mo,” and there couldn’t have been a better example than Carolina’s 31-24 victory over Seattle on Sunday in Charlotte, N.C.<\/p>\n

Emphatically backing up their superb regular season with one of the most dominating halves in football history, the Panthers then hung on in the face of a furious Seahawks rally before surviving.<\/p>\n

“The playoffs bring out more than any other time the impact of ‘Big Mo,'” Newton said after Carolina (16-1) moved into NFC title game, which they will host next Sunday against Arizona (13-3). “Momentum.<\/p>\n

“We can’t wait for no one to make plays for us.”<\/p>\n

The Panthers, winners of 12 straight at home, made all the right plays in building a 31-0 lead, then were dominated by the two-time defending NFC champs in the second half. So if Carolina wins its first NFL championship, it can credit the lesson learned from the Seahawks (11-7).<\/p>\n

“We have to find a way to complete a full game of football,” the All-Pro quarterback added. “We have been known to take our foot off the throttle and we have to find that killer instinct.”<\/p>\n

Newton noted how players, coaches and even the fans were feeling the pressure in the final 30 minutes as Seattle staged a relentless comeback.<\/p>\n

This will be the Panthers’ fourth trip to the NFC championship game, and their first time as host.<\/p>\n

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org\/content-only\/faq.php#publishers.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-recreation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6318\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}