ATLANTA — In his effort to simplify the final and biggest step on the road to the Super Bowl, Falcons coach Dan Quinn lectured his players about the football.
Not the game of the same name, but the pigskin itself.
Forget about red-hot Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers, Quinn implored for the past week, and keep it in the hands of your own superstar, Matt Ryan.
The plan worked to perfection in Sunday afternoon’s NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome, a stunning 44-21 Falcons blowout over Rodgers and the Packers.
Overshadowed somewhat by their opponent’s hot run — an eight-game winning streak that crashed hard here — and by the Cowboys’ brilliant regular season, the Falcons should have your attention now.
In the final football game played under the dome that will be replaced by the swanky Mercedes Benz Stadium next season, they were dominant in every phase. As a result, Ryan and his flock head to Houston with a serious shot at winning the first NFL championship in the franchise’s 50-year history.
As he was throughout the regular season, the quarterback they call Matty Ice was brilliant on Sunday, cold-blooded and efficient with the ball in his hands.
Nine years into his NFL career, Ryan has finally lived up to the standard that ultimately matters most in his sport: a conference title under his belt and a chance to parlay that into a Super Bowl championship.
The Ryan highlights, accentuated by a wealth of incredible playmakers on the Falcons offence, were many.
Best start with the gaudy final numbers, 392 passing yards while completing 27 of 38 attempts. There were four touchdowns through the air, and for kicks, a fifth Ryan trip to the end zone on the ground.
There was a 73-yard touchdown run-and-catch to receiving maestro Julio Jones on the first possession of the second half to make the score 31-0 and effectively raise the roof off the Georgia Dome.
There were 271 passing yards in the first half alone, essentially burying the Packers before Rodgers could get uncorked.
There was a precision-like two-minute drill before half-time that resulted in Jones’ first of two touchdowns, a five-yarder to ice the game away.
And throughout, there was the savvy management and killer instinct to take advantage of glaring Packers mistakes. In the first quarter, the Falcons possessed the ball for 11:53 of the 15 minutes and 22:02 of the opening half.
The Packers, who came to the Peach State as six-point underdogs, didn’t help themselves with early blunders.
Mason Crosby, who ripped the hearts out of Cowboys fans everywhere last week with a 51-yard game winning field goal as time expired, went wide on a 41-yard attempt on his team’s opening possession.
And the Packers never recovered.
Two more times in the first half, they gifted points to the Falcons. On their opening drive of the second quarter, Green Bay fullback Aaron Ripkowski was plowing ahead for extra yards when Jalen Collins stripped it from him at the Falcons 11 and tumbled on it in the end zone for a touchback.
The opportunistic Falcons weren’t about to waste it, either. Once again, Ryan showed the form that made him a contender for NFL MVP. The drive was capped off with a 14-yard Ryan run, the longest TD dash of his career and a 17-0 Atlanta lead.
To get in scoring position, there were three receptions to Jones for a combined 56 yards. The two touchdowns for the Falcons star wideout were part of his nine catch, 180-yard afternoon of work.
The Packers had an opportunity to keep it in the same area code before halftime, but then Rodgers got greedy when facing a third and 21 from his own 13-yard line.
On the first play after the two-minute warning, he heaved the ball deep, but hail — and Hail Marys, apparently — don’t fall under the Georgia Dome roof. The reckless toss was picked off by Falcons safety Ricardo Allen at the Atlanta 32 and once again Ryan took advantage of once again being presented with the football.
Clinically marching his team downfield with five completions and a scramble of his own, he found his man Jones in the end zone.
There will be no excuses for the Packers in this one. Jordy Nelson, who missed the Dallas game with broken ribs, had two big receptions on the Packers opening drive. Others were banged up as well, but the degree of the Falcons’ dominance was complete.
A team that seemed able to score at will on its memorable streak to get here, couldn’t compete in many areas. That they had to wait 5:41 into the third quarter to scored their first points — when Devante Adams hauled in a two-year Rodgers pass for a touchdown — was stunning.
The Falcons;’ young defence, meanwhile, brought the heat to Rodgers, who couldn’t scramble away from the pressure. Conversely, the Packers’ own defenders couldn’t touch the Ryan offence, which was forced to punt just once in the first three quarters.
The Falcons, a team built by general manager Thomas Dimitroff, who grew up learning football as a high school and university player in Ontario, will return to the big game for the first time since the 1998 season.
The best move Dimitroff — and perhaps the franchise — ever made was picking Ryan first overall in the 2008 NFL draft. In two weeks, we’ll find out how much it was worth the wait.