The lightning rod of last week’s divisional playoff round was beyond confirmation, that the NFL is still the boss in the American sports arena. The excitement of the NFL continues the skyrocket, that preemptively pushes the bounds of the NFL brand frontier.

And it only gets better my friends.

A Super Bowl matchup of the Harbaugh brothers is still in the cards. By Ben Liebenberg / NFL (NFL.com) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Will the Baltimore Ravens be able to celebrate the soul of their leader Ray Lewis once again in the toughest possible confrontation they could draw?

Does Tommy Touchdown, eventually get over on his most glaring nemesis of a defensive opponent?

The answers I refuse to guarantee – but even after last week’s salvage of a 1-3 prediction, the questions I will never refuse to ask, and the potential answers to those questions I will never refuse to expound upon.

Of course, Kaepernick’s NFL record-breaking performance for most rushing yards by a quarterback in any game, ever (183), won’t be duplicated. Without a doubt, Atlanta’s defense won’t limp and chase with the same evident worthlessness Green Bay’s defense did last Saturday. However, that doesn’t mean Kaepernick won’t utilize his feet to their fullest extent once again.

San Francisco will only lose because of turnovers. If they value and secure the ball, it will be incredibly difficult for Atlanta to beat them, even in the Georgia Dome. And if the neck-bucking ostrich, converts 3rd downs at a rate of 61.5% for the second playoff week in a row, we might as well consider the filthy Niners will be headed to the Super Bowl.

With all the attention directed at Kaepernick’s record-breaking day, doesn’t Tom Brady still have a stake in all this? Captain America seems to be the forgotten man in this year’s NFL Playoffs.

The most decorated quarterback in the game is still in the mix and hungry for another ring. Photo By Keith Allison from Baltimore, USA (Tom Brady) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

And if it is, Solomon Wilcots‘ preemptive cut-away from Ray Lewis’ tearful post-game sermon better not be prioritized by network promos. The pimping of The Big Bang Theory or Two Broke Girls apparently took precedence over a first-ballot NFL hall-of-famer, possibly giving us our last positive memory of him in celebration.

Next time, CBS, stay with the reality nugget right in front of you! We have a living legend shedding tears on live camera! You might want to stick with that.  Dorks uncomfortable around women and two waitresses who don’t get tipped,  can wait!

In all seriousness, I know just as much as you do about all this NFL analysis stuff — and in all honestly, probably a whole lot less.

What I do know however is a menu. I’ll be the guy that brought the bacon-wrapped shrimp and won your Super Bowl Party.

Show me the barbeque.

You’re Welcome.

The Georgia Dome will be rocking this weekend for the 49ers vs. Falcons. By Latics (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

First, let me quickly address the Ravens game. Joe Flacco is not as good as Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, or Aaron Rodgers. He does, however, fall into a second tier of quarterbacks that you COULD win a Super Bowl with. Other quarterbacks in this second level include Phillip Rivers (barely), Matt Schaub, Matthew Stafford, Colin Kaepernick (as of last week), Russell Wilson, maybe RG3, maybe Jay Cutler, and definitely Matt Ryan (did I miss anybody?).

Which brings me to the Falcons. They were 13-3 this season, rolling through an NFC South that was overrated early in the year and probably underrated late. At age 27, Ryan’s yards and completion percentage have steadily increased each of the past 3 seasons. He has four really great weapons at skill positions around him and the ability of the Falcons defense to do things that you can’t measure — like deliver a hard-even-for-the-NFL kind of hit on a running back or wide receiver earned them the number one seed in the NFC.

My father has told me many times, “sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.” Apparently this year’s Falcons are a statistical fluke. They have won a lot of close games that they maybe shouldn’t have and their overall stats don’t measure-up against any of the teams remaining in the playoffs. Their defense is hard to measure as really great, so “experts” who may not have fully figured out how to quantify its effectiveness have to call it a fluke, because the issue can never be the way in which we measure and predict these things — at least not publicly.

Whether the Falcons win this weekend and go to the Super Bowl or not, let’s not discount their season as “lucky.” Luck always plays a role in sports, but taking advantage of lucky situations is what great teams do. The Falcons have a home game to get to the Super Bowl against a team from the west coast. They fought all year to go 13-3 and to have that right. They have stayed healthy and are in a position to knock-off a team most people believe is better than they are.

In 2002, every pundit in the world picked the St. Louis Rams to handle the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXVI. The Rams outgained the Patriots 427-267 in total yards, but New England used turnovers and great team play to win the game. It was before Tom Brady was Tom Brady. A lasting image I have from that game is the Rams being introduced individually and then the Patriots refusing individual introduction in favor of a team introduction. I thought, “uh oh” at the time and three Super Bowls later, fans and pundits alike fail to hold onto a lesson in prediction I learned that day: When everyone is predicting one way in the NFL playoffs, they are all wrong more often than we think.

I don’t know if I’ll pick Atlanta for this weekend’s games, but I do know that I respect what they’ve done this year. There is a lot more to this team than luck.