NFL Playoff Bracket 2017: AFC, NFC Championship Picture, Odds and Predictions

After a fairly boring NFL Wild Card Weekend and beginning of the divisional round, we finally got the postseason football we wanted to see on Sunday with a pair of tense, down-to-the-last-moment matchups. 

In the NFC, the red-hot Green Bay Packers traveled to Dallas to take on the Cowboys and eked out a 34-31 win thanks to a walk-off, 51-yard field goal by kicker Mason Crosby. Now, the Packers will take on the Atlanta Falcons and their high-octane passing offense in the NFC Championship Game on January 22. 

Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Steelers also kept their matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs close, closing out their game with an 18-16 advantage to earn a trip to the AFC Championship Game to take on the New England Patriots. 

All the information you need on how to watch the games next weekend is below as well as the early odds on the matchups and predictions for who will win it all to advance to Super Bowl LI in Houston on February 5. 

Date	Time	TV	Away	Home	Point Spread	Prediction
Sunday, January 22	3:05 p.m.	Fox	GB	ATL	ATL -4.5	Packers
Sunday, January 22	6:40 p.m.	CBS	PIT	NE	NE -4.5	Patriots

NFC Championship

Green Bay Packers at Atlanta Falcons

Rainier Ehrhardt/Associated Press

The Dallas Cowboys and Seattle Seahawks put up good campaigns, but it felt like the NFC was always heading here: Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan, the fourth seed and the second seed, the Packers and the Falcons. 

In terms of what makes for great television, this matchup could knock it out of the park. Both teams had passing offenses ranked in the top 10 in the regular season, but their pass defenses both finished in the bottom five in the NFL. 

That has all the makings of a shootout if we've ever seen one. 

There are other similarities between these two teams. For instance, both Atlanta's and Green Bay's top wideout, Julio Jones and Jordy Nelson, have struggled with injuries this postseason.

Jones left the Falcons' divisional-round matchup against the Seattle Seahawks with a nagging foot injury, while Nelson missed Sunday's action after injuring his ribs in the first round of the playoffs. 

Nelson is recovering, per Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, but his status for the championship game remains up in the air: 

Green Bay's and Atlanta's offensive lines are two of the better ones in the league this year, and the spotlight will be focused on both units as they attempt to protect their quarterbacks and allow them to do what they do.

Whichever team can dial up the pass rush, make the other passer uncomfortable and, best of all, force turnovers will find itself headed to the Super Bowl.  

These squads gave us one of the most memorable playoff games of all time in January 2011, and it will be a treat to see Rodgers and Ryan face off once again, especially since they've each only gotten better since then.

AFC Championship  

Pittsburgh Steelers at New England Patriots

Jared Wickerham/Associated Press

This is the AFC Championship Game that everyone could see coming back at the beginning of the season, but it will be no less exciting despite being expected. 

It's the first time the two teams have faced one another in the title game since 2004. New England's road to the Super Bowl both in 2001 and 2004 pitted it against Pittsburgh in the final round of the playoffs. 

These two squads met once before this season in Week 7, but Ben Roethlisberger sat the game out with an injury. The Patriots won that meeting 27-16.

This matchup features a fascinating standoff between the Steelers' double-pronged offensive attack behind Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown through the air and Le'Veon Bell on the ground and New England's stout defense, which allowed opponents just 15.6 points per game on average in the regular season.  

However, the Steelers' own scoring defense was nothing to sneeze at in 2016, coming in at 10th in the league in points allowed per game.

That unit will hope to contain Tom Brady and LeGarrette Blount, who found the end zone a whopping 18 times for the Patriots in the regular season, more than doubling any of his previous season totals. 

In its past bids for entry to the Super Bowl, the Patriots used more of a backfield-by-committee approach, so it will be interesting to see how this New England team evolves behind such a dominant rusher as Blount. 

The Steelers entered the postseason hot, with their own version of "running the table" that the Packers so impressively pulled off. Ultimately, however, the Bill Belichick-led Patriots are impossible to bet against on this stage. 

Odds via OddsShark and current as of January 15.