NFL Playoff Schedule 2017: AFC, NFC Championship Dates, Times and Preview

The second round of the 2016-17 NFL postseason has reached its official end. The remaining divisional playoff field has been cut in half, and we now have our final four set.

Next Sunday, these last four teams will be competing for their chance to appear in Super Bowl LI. The winners of each conference championship game will obviously be the teams advancing to play in the big game.

The question is, which teams have what it takes to win one more time in order to get there?

We're here to take an in-depth look at Championship Weekend. We'll be looking at the schedule, the games and some of the top storylines entering each game.

NFL Conference Championships

Time (ET)	Conf.	Game	National TV	Live Stream
3:05 p.m.	NFC	Green Bay at Atlanta	Fox	Fox Sports Live
6:40 p.m.	AFC	Pittsburgh at New England	CBS	CBS Sports Live

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Green Bay at Atlanta

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The Green Bay Packers and Atlanta Falcons will kick off next Sunday's action in the rematch from a regular-season thriller. The first meeting resulted in a 33-32 victory for the Falcons in a shootout. There's a good chance the rematch will be a shootout as well.

Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan are both playing incredibly well right now—perhaps as well as any pair of quarterbacks has played all season.

Rodgers likely has the taste of a shootout still lingering in his mouth after the ending of Sunday's game against the Dallas Cowboys. Though the Packers had control of the game early, Dallas scored 18 points in the fourth quarter to leave the game tied with less than a minute remaining.

It took a heck of a downfield throw from Rodgers and an ever better catch by tight end Jared Cook to set up Mason Crosby's game-winning field goal.

"I knew it was good," Cook said of the catch, per Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com. "It was a perfect throw by Aaron."

Rodgers finished the game 28-of-43 for 356 yards, two touchdowns and an interception.

Ryan didn't have quite as much drama involved with his team's win on Saturday. The Falcons essentially thumped the Seattle Seahawks into submission, winning the game 36-20.

Ryan sliced through the vaunted Seahawks defense for 338 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions. He was 26-of-37 on the afternoon.

While the Packers defense has shown improvement over the past couple of months, it's going to be difficult to actually contain Ryan, Julio Jones, Taylor Gabriel and the rest of the Falcons offense. As a team, Pro Football Focus rates the Packers just 15th in overall defense.

This means Green Bay may be better off trying to match points with Atlanta.

The good news is the Packers may have the benefit of a Jordy Nelson return. The speedy wideout was responsible for 1,257 yards and 14 touchdowns during the regular season but was unavailable against the Cowboys because of broken ribs.

If Nelson is healthy enough to try playing, there's virtually no doubt he'll give it a go. However, there's no guarantee this will be the case.

Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel spoke with Nelson following the Packers' win over Dallas. However, the only thing the receiver made clear is that he's better off than he was at the beginning of the week:

Nelson's health will likely be one of the biggest storylines to follow between now and next weekend. The Packers are going to want all of the weapons they can muster.

Pittsburgh at New England

While the Packers and the Falcons both played remarkable games over the weekend, the same cannot be said about the New England Patriots. Yes, the Patriots ended up winning 34-16, but they did it in about as ugly a fashion as conceivably possible.

New England's defense—which allowed an NFL-low 15.6 points per game in the regular season—did enough to keep Houston from staying in the game late. Against a better offense and a more consistent quarterback, though, the Patriots might have been in real danger of losing to the Houston Texans on Saturday night.

The problem was, Houston's defensive front consistently found ways to pressure quarterback Tom Brady. This resulted in perhaps the most disappointing outing of Brady's season. He completed just 47.4 percent of his passes and equaled the number of his regular-season interceptions with two.

Offensively, the Patriots were good enough to outscore the Texans, but this isn't going to be a sustainable game plan in the AFC title game.

"The turnovers obviously hurt us quite a bit," Brady explained, per Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald. "We’ve got to try to tighten those up this week. Whoever we play next week is going to be a great football team, and we’re going to have to play better than we did tonight on offense."

Brady and the rest of the Patriots offense will have to be sharper against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Pittsburgh defense held the Kansas City Chiefs to a mere 16 points on Sunday, while forcing two turnovers of their own.

Of course, if the Patriots do find their mojo again, we could be treated to another quarterback duel in Foxborough, Massachusetts. The matchup between Brady and Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger could easily be as exciting as the one between Ryan and Rodgers.

This game will also be a rematch of a regular-season contest, though Round 1 was played in Pittsburgh. The Patriots won the first matchup 27-16, but they did so against a team that was missing Roethlisberger under center.

To be perfectly fair, the Steelers are also going to have to play better offensively next week. Despite amassing 389 yards of total offense, Pittsburgh only mustered 18 points.

This will mark the third time since 2001 that the Steelers and Patriots have met in the AFC Championship Game, though it will only be the second time Roethlisberger and Brady have met in the title game. Roethlisberger was a rookie the first time around.