The Packers are headed to Atlanta for the NFC Championship Game next Sunday thanks to some last-second heroics by tight end Jared Cook and quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Facing third-and-20 with the score tied and 12 seconds left in regulation, Rodgers rolled to his left and fired a strike to Cook down the sideline. Cook made a remarkable sliding catch that one official initially ruled out incomplete, but another correctly ruled as a catch with Cook getting both feet in while controlling the ball.
Mason Crosby hit a 51-yard field goal on the next play for a 34-31 win. Cook undersold things by answering “probably not” when asked if he’s ever made a more important catch as it is hard to beat his play when it comes to the difficulty of the catch matched with the magnitude of the moment. Cook threw some light on the other end of the connection after the game.
“I knew it was good,” Cook said, via Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com. “It was a perfect throw by Aaron.”
Rodgers made more than one perfect throw on Sunday and Matt Ryan did the same in Saturday’s Falcons win, which suggests we’ll be seeing a lot of offense next Sunday.
