NFL Playoffs: Conference Championships

Conference Championship picks:

Wes Welker will be facing his former team, and while he never had as low receiving yardage on New England as he's had
on Denver, he has more touchdowns this season than he ever had in a season with Brady throwing him the ball.

(1)Denver Broncos vs. (2)New England Patriots
With the exceptions of the Texans and Falcons, just about every team that was expected to go far this season, did.  In fact, the Broncos, Seahawks, Patriots, and 49ers were probably the top four most popular picks to win the Super Bowl at the beginning of the season.  When these four teams go at it today, we won't get anything less than expected.  The Broncos and Patriots square off first, after a wild week 12 shootout between Peyton Manning and Tom Brady that ended with the wind(literally) favoring New England.  Peyton however is 6-0 in rematches within a season since 2008, and Brady has been putting up mostly pedestrian numbers his entire 2013 campaign.  Last week, both teams shifted their play-calling to the run game, something they had done at other points in the season, and succeeded.  This time around, both squads will need their entire offenses.  That bodes well for Denver, who has the better offensive attack, and while defense is usually just as important, this playoff game won't feature much of it.  In Manning-Brady XV, not even the great Brady-Belichick duo will be ably to stop The Sheriff.

Prediction: Broncos 34  Patriots 30

Michael Crabtree has a solid 31 receptions for 435 yards and 1 touchdown in 7 games this season(including postseason)

(1)Seattle Seahawks vs. (5)San Francisco 49ers
The last time any team made it to the Super Bowl in consecutive seasons, Tom Brady was winning his third NFL championship.  The San Francisco 49ers plan to be next.  At the C-Link tonight, the 49ers and Seattle Seahawks go at it for the fifth time in two seasons.  The Seahawks found out on Friday they won't have their game-changing playmaker Percy Harvin.  This greatly affects their offense in that they will need to rely more on their core players Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch.  This usually wouldn't be a problem for Seattle, but they're playing San Francisco, against whom Wilson performs average at best, and, no matter how well "Beast Mode" has done in the past, has a defense built to abolish the run.  Since 1990, teams from the same division have met in the conference championship four times.  The road team has won three of them.  Even with the Seahawks defense and Legion of Boom playing their best, Kaepernick, Gore, and the rest of the 49ers will emerge victorious, and head to a showdown of epic proportions at MetLife Stadium.

Prediction: Seahawks 16  49ers 24