1 reason to root for each NFL team on Conference Championship Weekend

The Conference Championship Round of the 2020 NFL playoffs is upon us, and we’ve got some great matchups for the weekend. In the AFC, the Kansas City Chiefs will host the Tennessee Titans at Arrowhead Stadium. These two met during Week 10 of the regular season, and the Titans won 35-32 in Nashville.

In the NFC, the San Francisco 49ers will host the Green Bay Packers, another rematch of a regular season game. The 49ers defeated the Packers 37-8 in Week 12. The Packers will be playing for their first conference championship since the 2016 season, and the 49ers haven’t played in one since the 2013 season.

Whether or not you have a dog in this fight, I have a reason why you can root for each one of these teams playing this weekend.

Why you should root for the Titans: This underdog team just keeps winning!

The Titans have shocked the NFL world this postseason. In Week 9, this was a 4-5 team. Since then, Tennessee has been on a 7-2 run, and they’ve played the role of spoiler in the playoffs. It started with the Titans’ upset of the New England Patriots on the road in the Wild Card Round. They then followed that up by taking down the No. 1 seeded Baltimore Ravens, also on the road. The Titans are currently a 7.5-point underdog against the Chiefs.

One of the things that makes this team dangerous is running back Derrick Henry, who’s finished the regular season as the league’s leading rusher. In the Titans’ two playoff games, he’s rushed for 188.5 yards per game, and is averaging 5.9 yards per carry. He’s having the best NFL season of his career, and it’s a big reason why the Titans are so much fun:

A once-unwatchable team had become one of the league’s most exciting, even if the Titans’ ascendance wasn’t yet obvious to the NFL world at large. Tannehill’s leveled-up intermediate passing game led to a win in his first start against the Chargers and began A.J. Brown’s transformation into a potential offensive rookie of the year winner. Three weeks later, Henry stamped his arrival across the league’s forehead with a 188-yard performance in a comeback win over the Chiefs.

Just two No. 6 seeds in NFL history have made it to the Super Bowl: the 2005 Steelers and 2010 Packers. Both teams hoisted the Lombardi Trophy, too.

Why you should root for the Chiefs: Andy Reid can win his first Super Bowl.

Reid has been a head coach in the league since 1999, but he’s been to just one Super Bowl in that time. His Eagles team lost, 24-21, to the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX.

Sunday marks Reid’s seventh conference championship appearance. Between his stints with the Eagles and Chiefs, his record is just 1-5 in this round so far. He also has the most wins ever for a head coach who hasn’t won a Super Bowl (207). As such, Reid’s teams are known for coming up just short, but this is a perfect chance for him to reverse that narrative.

Finally winning a title would be special for Reid, who is a well-liked head coach with one of the most impressive coaching trees in the league. Reid’s quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, spoke about how happy he would be for his coach to win a Super Bowl at long last.

“It would be amazing,” Mahomes said, via Pro Football Talk. “The work that he has put in every single day, everywhere he’s been he’s had success, so we want to get him that Super Bowl.”

Chiefs special teams coordinator and longtime Reid assistant Dave Toub said he’d love to see Reid win one, too:

To reach a Super Bowl, Reid’s Chiefs have to get a win on Sunday. The Chiefs lost the AFC Championship Game at home last season to the Patriots in overtime.

Why you should root for the Packers: Aaron Rodgers gets another chance to make the 49ers regret passing on him in the 2005 draft.

Rodgers is a native of Chico, Calif., which lies just roughly 3 hours north of San Francisco. In fact, Rodgers used to dream of playing for the 49ers when he was growing up.

“I usually dreamed about playing for the 49ers as a kid,” Rodgers said in a presser on Wednesday via NBC Sports Bay Area. “Obviously, that thing passed a long time ago. But I do remember some great games over the years between the 49ers and the Packers.”

During his draft year, the 49ers selected Alex Smith with the No. 1 overall pick. Rodgers had to wait until the No. 24 overall pick to be selected by the Packers. It wasn’t easy on Rodgers, according to ESPN’s oral history of his draft slide:

“Here I am, we’re in the 20s and they’re cleaning up the other six tables they had set up in there, and here I am sitting there with my mom and dad and my brother and my best friend and my agent and you’ve got the camera looking at you the entire time and knowing that there’s a ton of people watching this and knowing I’ve got to keep it get together when really I just wanted just go somewhere and be alone and not having to deal with this and just wake me up when it’s over.”

Let’s just say Rodgers wasn’t too happy about his hometown team not picking him:

Reporter: How disappointed are you that you will not be a 49er?

Rodgers: Not as disappointed as the 49ers will be that they didn’t draft me.

Smith went on to play for the 49ers for seven seasons, and although he led them to the NFC Championship Game during the 2011 season, Rodgers by far had the better career in Green Bay. He’s 113-60-1 as a starter and won a Super Bowl for the Packers in 2010.

Since Smith’s time in San Francisco, the 49ers have had six different quarterbacks start games: Colin Kaepernick, Blaine Gabbert, Brian Hoyer, C.J. Beathard, Jimmy Garoppolo, and Nick Mullens. The 49ers are having a pretty big year now with Garoppolo, but Rodgers getting to spoil San Francisco’s Super Bowl hopes in California would be pretty good revenge.

Rodgers is 4-5 against San Francisco in his career, including an 0-2 record in the playoffs.

Why you should root for the 49ers: Do you hate those State Farm commercials and wanna see Aaron Rodgers get sacked a million times? Well, you’re in luck.

You know the commercials I’m talking about. Don’t worry, I’m not going to torture you by embedding one in here. (OK, but if you really don’t know the one I’m talking about, here you go.) The 49ers defense ranked fifth in the NFL in sacks this season, and Green Bay ranked 12th in sacks allowed.

When these two teams played earlier in the season. San Francisco’s defense was missing defensive end Dee Ford and linebacker Kwon Alexander. The 49ers still sacked Rodgers five times in that game. This time, the 49ers will have both of those guys back — in addition to Nick Bosa, DeForest Buckner, Arik Armstead, and Solomon Thomas.

That front seven combined for six sacks on Kirk Cousins last week. The 49ers also held Cousins’ offense to just seven first downs, and it averaged 3.3 yards per play. The Vikings were just 2 of 12 on third down.

The 49ers’ front seven will give Rodgers some pressure on Sunday once again, and now that the unit is fully healthy, it might be even more harder for Rodgers to get things going.

It sure sounds like a tall task for Green Bay, but it’s currently riding a six-game win streak. If the Packers do get eliminated, hopefully we can stop seeing so many damn State Farm commercials.