NFL against the spread picks: A great Super Bowl matchup awaits, no matter who wins this weekend

·NFL writer

January 20, 2017 at 3:41 p.m.

It’s not too often – especially when a No. 1 and No. 2 seed are upset in the divisional round – that any possible Super Bowl matchup among the final four teams would be a good one.

Yet, there’s no team in this final four that would ruin the Super Bowl party. Each team is intriguing in its own way. The Atlanta Falcons have the best offense. The Green Bay Packers have the most exciting player. The New England Patriots have the best coach, a legendary quarterback and a lot of history on the line. The Pittsburgh Steelers have the best No. 1 running back/No. 1 receiver combination since … well, it has been a while.

Any matchup is fine. Packers-Patriots might be the most viewer-friendly, but Falcons-Patriots (with two of the three highest-scoring offenses in football) could be the more aesthetically pleasing game. Steelers-Packers would once again bring together two of the sport’s best fan bases on its biggest stage. Steelers-Falcons would have a ton of star power and a lot of points too. We can’t lose.

There’s also a good possibility of two good games this weekend. Aside from the Packers’ win over the Dallas Cowboys, the theme of the playoffs has been that the games haven’t been great. But the last three games might change that.

Here are the against-the-spread picks for the championship round, using the Yahoo Pro Football Pick’em lines:

Falcons (-4.5) over Packers: It wouldn’t surprise me if on Sunday night we’re all talking about how Aaron Rodgers did it again. He’s incredibly locked in. Football is the ultimate team sport, you can’t win games by yourself. At least, you’re not supposed to be able to. If the Packers end up going to the Super Bowl with this team, it will be like LeBron James in his first Cleveland Cavaliers stint, carrying those teams to ridiculous heights. The 2008-09 Cleveland Cavaliers won 66 games with LeBron and a cast that would have won maybe 20 games without him. And it’s much, much easier to do the one-man gang act in basketball.

The thing about James’ first run with the Cavs is he couldn’t get them to a championship, and I think Rodgers’ run ends before the Super Bowl. The defense is beat up pretty bad, especially in the secondary, and we’ve spent most of the week wondering who will play receiver. We already know they’re patching together a running game. The Falcons were the highest-scoring offense in the NFL, scoring 71 more points than any other team. I just don’t know how the Packers get enough stops on defense to win. And if the Packers do win, we’ll be talking about Rodgers’ run in 2016-17 for a long, long time.

Aaron Rodgers has led Green Bay to eight straight wins. (AP)

Steelers (+5.5) over Patriots: I don’t think the first game will be a close one. I do believe we’ll get a good one in the evening.

Pittsburgh is probably the best team the Patriots will face this season. I don’t fully believe in judging a team by strength of schedule, because this isn’t college football. Kansas won’t appear on the schedule in the NFL. Every game is against a capable team. And the Patriots have won 15 of their 17 games. They’ve won 12 of 13 games with Tom Brady at quarterback and 10 wins were by double digits. They had the NFL’s easiest schedule according to Football Outsiders, but does that matter when you’re beating almost every team by 10 or more points?

Yet, this Steelers team gives the Patriots some challenges they haven’t seen this season. Le’Veon Bell is playing at an all-time great level late in the season. If the Patriots focus on stopping him, Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown can come up with some big plays. The Steelers have more than enough offensive pop to make this game interesting, and the defense has been solid lately too.

I’m not sure if the Steelers can win at Foxborough. It’s really hard to win there. But I think this will be a close game. And with a break here or there, Pittsburgh could pull a fairly big upset.

Last week: 4-0
Playoffs to date: 6-2
Season to date: 136-120-8

Related NFL coverage on Yahoo Sports:

– – – – – – –

Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
Follow @YahooSchwab