NFL Playoff Bracket 2012: Predicting Championship Game Pairings

After one awesome day of football on Saturday, we are now just two games away from knowing who will face off in the AFC and NFC championship games. If there is anything we learned from Saturday's results, it's that momentum is meaningless in these games and anything can happen. 

Here are predictions for the matchups that will determine who will go to the Super Bowl. 

AFC Championship: Houston Texans at New England Patriots

The Ravens are favorites in today's game against the Texans, but Houston is a tougher matchup than they are given credit for.

In my opinion, Houston has the better defense, despite what the meaningless rankings say. Their edge rushers are going to give the Texans problems in protection. Jonathan Joseph can easily take away Anquan Boldin, which will limit what the Ravens can do offensively. The key to this game will be the performance of Ray Rice, who may have to carry the Ravens offense on his own. 

Houston can run the ball on just about anyone, as they pushed around a good Bengals front a week ago. Baltimore is usually stout at the point of attack, but I can certainly see the Texans getting a big run or two to put the Ravens on their heels. 

One would think that Andre Johnson has gotten all of his rust out of the way, and the Ravens are going to have a hard time covering him, no matter who is throwing the ball. Yates has not been anything to get too excited about, but if he can make a few throws and not turn the ball over, the Texans have a great shot at giving the Ravens their first home loss of the season. 

NFC Championship: San Francisco 49ers at Green Bay Packers

Of all of the games this weekend, the matchup between the Packers and Giants is the most difficult to get a good "feel" of. 

One of the reasons is because we have not see the Packers at 100 percent in about a month. Without Greg Jennings, the Packers were showing signs of vulnerability, but now that he is back in the lineup and the offensive line is getting healthier, one would think that the Packers will return to the form they were in earlier in the season. 

The two big issues for the Packers is how they are going to hold off the Giants' pass rush and limit their big plays. Aaron Rogers has been able to make his line look a lot better than it really is, and the Packers are going to have to rely on Rogers being his usual excellent self to counter the Giants' rush. 

On the other side of the ball, the Packers do not match up well in the back end with the Giants and will score their points. However, if there is one thing the Packers have done well all season on defense, it is creating turnovers, and they do have a good matchup with Matthews on Kareem McKenzie. 

I can see the Packers getting a good game from Matthews, who will cause chaos in the Giants' backfield and help the Packers defense make just enough plays to punch the Packers' ticket to the NFC Championship game.