NFL Playoff Schedule 2012: Top Storylines for AFC & NFC Championships

There's nothing quite like Championship Sunday in the NFL.

It's the closest thing pro-football fans can get to watching intense, meaningful matchups between the top teams in the league without being wholly bombarded by over-hyped ads and head-scratching halftime shows.

This year's Final Four football field is filled with intriguing storylines, each and every one of which is bound to be beaten like a dead horse at some point, assuming it hasn't already.

These tales, in particular, are worth following up on as the games progress.

AFC Championship: Baltimore Ravens vs. New England Patriots, 3:00 p.m. EST on CBS

Fearless Ravens Fly into Foxboro

If there's any team that can go into Foxboro and pull off a stunner, it's the Ravens.

They destroyed the Pats at Gillette Stadium in the playoffs two years ago, 33-14, and came agonizingly close to upending them during the 2010 regular season.

Of course, Baltimore's defense has fallen off significantly since then (see: manhandling, Texans, Houston) and the Brady Bunch is significantly more dangerous offensively, with Wes Welker and two of the NFL's top tight ends (Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez) wreaking havoc all over the field.

If Ray Lewis and Jameel McClain can't keep up with Brady's big targets, then Baltimore's Super Bowl hopes figure to be in even bigger trouble.

Joe Flacco's Battle in the Baltimore Locker Room

There was much ado about nothing this week amidst a tug-of-war over Joe Flacco.

On the one hand, Hall-of-Fame safety Ed Reed publicly criticized his quarterback for his lackluster play against the Texans. On the other, Lewis and pass-rush specialist Terrell Suggs came out in unequivocal support of the flappable Flacco, showing support for a player who's yet to truly deliver on his considerable promise.

The whole thing smelt of contrivance, with the Ravens' veterans hoping to motivate Flacco with a bit of "Good Cop, Bad Cop" via the media. We'll know for sure whether that gambit had any effect, positive or negative, when Flacco takes to the field in Foxboro on Sunday.

Tom Brady and the Year of the Quarterback

Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees both bowed out of the running last weekend and Peyton Manning never once saw a snap this season, leaving Tom Brady as the lone unquestionably elite signal caller left in pursuit of a spot in Super Bowl XLVI.

Brady was nothing short of brilliant against the Denver Broncos last Saturday, slicing and dicing a once-respectable defense for 363 yards and a playoff-record-tying six touchdowns in a 45-10 victory for the Pats.

New England will need every morsel of magnificence Brady can muster, though with his career QB rating of 77.9 against the Ravens, those may be hard to come by. 

The Hoodie and the D Aim for Indy

As fantastic a final score as 45-10 is on paper, it's tough to deny that the Pats' paltry defense got a massive break opening up the postseason against Tim Tebow and the inconsistent Broncos offense.

That said, Bill Belichick did a masterful job of masking his D's deficiencies while simultaneously attacking Denver's many glaring weaknesses on offense. The Hoodie will have his work cut out for him again on Sunday, albeit against a similarly impotent offense that Baltimore brings to town.

With another well-executed game plan, Belichick will be well on his way to a fifth Super Bowl berth.  

NFC Championship Game: New York Giants vs. San Francisco 49ers

Party Like It's 2008?

Stop me if you've heard this before: The Giants, after something of a second-half collapse, sneak their way into the playoffs and find themselves on the brink of a Super Bowl berth behind clutch play by Eli Manning on offense and a dominant pass rush on defense.

The formula is much the same for Big Blue as it was four years ago, though the results thus far is actually much more reminiscent of last year's Green Bay Packers, who demolished the competition on the road to Dallas.

The G-Men have manhandled the Atlanta Falcons and the Packers thus far, and will look to add another considerable notch to their belt when they take on the 49ers in San Francisco on Sunday. 

No. 1 Picks Come of Age

The NFC Championship Game will essentially serve as a pivotal moment in the respective bildungsromans of Eli Manning and Alex Smith. Manning, the No. 1 pick in the 2004 NFL Draft, already has a title on his resume, though his leap up to elite status didn't come until this season.

Smith, the No. 1 pick the year after Manning came out, finally put together a solid campaign in 2011 after six forgettable seasons in San Francisco, delivering on some of the promise that made him the Niners' choice, ahead of some kid out of Cal named Aaron Rodgers.

Smith may never reach Eli's level of overall competency at the quarterback position, but with a win at Candlestick, he can match Manning in career Super Bowl appearances, at the very least. 

An NFL Institution Reborn

There was a time (i.e. the 1980s) when the 49ers and the Giants were seemingly annual postseason combatants. The Niners won four of the first seven meetings between these two venerable franchises, with each team garnering two Super Bowl victories after having defeated one another in the playoffs.

Their most recent meeting came in 2003, when Steve Mariucci's Niners stormed back from a 24-point deficit, thanks in large part to a brilliant effort by Jeff Garcia, to top Jim Fassel's Giants, 39-38, on a game most widely remembered for the botched field goal that brought it to an end.

Harbaugh's Bay Area Revival

It won't be long before Jim Harbaugh has a giant statue erected in his honor that can be seen from all corners of the Bay Area. His rise to the top of the coaching world began at Stanford, where he guided a once-proud program back to relevance, with a little help from Andrew Luck here and there.

After turning down a gig with the Miami Dolphins, Harbaugh opted to stay in northern California, taking a 49ers franchise that went 6-10 last season and hadn't been to the playoffs in nine years to the pinnacle of the NFC West and the brink of the Super Bowl.

Mind you, he did all this without the benefit of OTAs or a full training camp.

The only thing that could make this year more remarkable for Harbaugh is a trip to Indianapolis—where he once played for the Colts—to battle brother Jim's Ravens in Super Bowl XLVI.

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