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Maybe Super Bowl LI can save what has been a dreadful postseason for NFL

Let’s be honest: This has been the worst NFL postseason in recent memory. There has been painfully little drama on the sport’s biggest stage.

A classic Super Bowl LI between the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons would send us into the offseason on a good note, but the playoffs haven’t been fun so far. There have been 10 playoff games. Eight of them have been decided by double digits, and favorites won all eight of those games. There has been one true classic (the Green Bay Packers’ dramatic win in the divisional round over the Dallas Cowboys) and one close but forgettable game (the Pittsburgh Steelers over the Kansas City Chiefs in the divisional round). Most of the games have been decided long before the fourth quarter starts.

This is when the best football is supposed to be played, but mostly just one team in each game has played well. On Sunday the Falcons won the NFC championship game over the Packers 44-21 and the Patriots beat the Steelers 36-17 in the AFC title game. The last time both conference championship games were decided by at least 19 points was 1978, according to NFL Research.

Aaron Rodgers sits alone on the bench after the Packers were blown out in the NFC championship game. (AP)
Aaron Rodgers had a rough Sunday as his Packers got blown out in the NFC championship game. (AP)

The two conference championship blowouts pushed the average margin of victory in the 10 playoff games this season to 15.7 points. If you take out the Packers-Cowboys and Steelers-Chiefs games, that number is 19. That’s a lot of dull football.

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Although there will surely be complaints, there’s nothing the NFL can do to fix playoff blowouts. The conference championship games set up well for interesting matchups. All four teams came into championship weekend with star quarterbacks, and on long winning streaks. Most people expected drama. But the Packers and Steelers didn’t play well, and the Falcons and Patriots cruised to easy wins. Nobody could have predicted a postseason full of lopsided games, and there’s no real reason for it. But that’s what we’ve gotten.

In wild-card weekend the four games had an average margin of victory of 19 points, the most since the NFL adopted the current playoff format in 1990. The blowouts continued through the conference championship round. Perhaps the Super Bowl will be better. Eight of the last nine Super Bowls have been close in the fourth quarter.

Maybe the Falcons and Patriots can provide some drama that the first three rounds of the playoffs could not. It’s our last hope before football goes into hibernation for the offseason.

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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!