We're going to be putting our GIFs from the respective Conference Championship games right here. So if you're looking for Julio Jones's touchdown scoring, a security guard eliminating prowess, here's your spot, or weeping Ray Lewis, this here's the place.
San Francisco 28, Atlanta 24: Even though San Francisco won, our lead image is Jim Harbaugh freaking out, for obvious reasons. Harbaugh does not take bad news—in this case a Harry Douglas reception upheld at a critical moment late in the fourth quarter—very well and doesn't mind letting the whole world know. Relax, Jim: you're almost going to Disney World!
This game followed the same Falcons script for seemingly every single game this year. Only today, luck finally ran out. It looked like for a moment, though, that the Falcons were going to continue that lucky streak when Harry Douglas, perhaps stunned to find himself suddenly wide the fuck open, tripped all over himself and stumbled and bobbled a pass that, it could be argued, should not have been a catch. It was called a catch on the field, however, and neither replay nor Harbaugh's histrionics could overturn it.
If Douglas doesn't stumble, he probably catches it clean and scores. That's when you knew it was all over for the Falcons. The catch prolonged the drive, but Atlanta eventually came up empty on two straight incompletions on third-and-four and fourth-and-four with just over one minute to go in the game, down four. The 49ers took over on downs and wound the clock to around :10 remaining and the Falcons were toast. One half of the Harbaugh Bowl is booked.
As we mentioned, things started off great for the Falcons. Here's Julio Jones and Ryan hooking up for a big play four minutes into the game. At one point, shortly after, FOX showed a graphic juxtaposing the yardage accumulation of Jones (100) with the 49ers (1). This got him halfway there.
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And this, this is just pretty. One toe, two toes and then a foot drag just because why not?
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Scary moment for security personnel when Julio Jones went barreling into the knees of an unsuspecting security guard. Kind of weird that these guys have to stand so close to the field of play with their backs to turned to it, but it's even weirder that no one tried to warn him. Maybe he's a jerk? Anyway, we hope he's safe. Unless he's a really, really big jerk. Like, kicking-puppies-jerk.
Frank Gore had 90 yards and two touchdowns, but it just felt like he ran all over the Falcons whenever he wanted to today so it's OK as far as I'm concerned for him to do this dismissive version of the famed Dirty Bird dance.
Immediately preceding this possession, The Falcons had a quick three-and-out inside their own five yard line because they recovered a Michael Crabtree fumble on what looked to be a sure-thing 49ers scoring drive. Instead, Crabtree fumbles at the line and merely delays the inevitable.
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In terms of athletes telling others to shut things down, I'm still partial to Dirk, but this is a pretty good one, too.
Al....ex Smi...oh get the fuck outta here with this.
And the Oscar goes to...Beasts of the Southern Wild.
Baltimore 28, New England 13: First things first: After backing, slowly and haltingly, into the playoffs, with a team of aging stars and the distinct smell of a soft-focus swan song for Ray Lewis and a quick exit, the Ravens have now beaten golden boy rookie Andrew Luck, Peyton Manning in Mile High Denver and Tom Brady in Foxboro. In the last two, they were 10-point underdogs. It's as fun as ever to rip on Joe Flacco, the oaf who thinks he's "elite," and the aging defense that's somehow fearsome and pompous at the same time, but the Ravens are this year's team that got hot at the right time and it's kinda fun. Here's to a weird and unpredictable Super Bowl. (Oh, sorry, first things first: HarbaughBowl. HarBowl? BaughBowl? Get ready to learn more than you ever wanted to know about Jack, Jackie, John and Jim [seriously].)
It started off... disconcertingly, with Ray Lewis, even more unable to hold it together than normal, weeping during the national anthem. At this rate he'll be downing a bottle of aspirin during the Super Bowl pregame:
The Ravens took the lead early on a short run from Ray Rice, which gave Rice the opportunity to kiss his pecs and, even better, turn away disdainfully when some Patriots fans tried to get in on the action:
Before things got out of hand, it was a night of bruising hits—aside from the one that (almost) everyone will remember, here's Jerod Mayo on Dennis Pitta. Pitta was not considered a defenseless receiver, somehow. A play later, the Ravens retook the lead for good:
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As the Patriots attempted to come back—they were down 21-13 at this point—they ran the ball with Stevan Ridley, who'd been their workhorse back this game (and season). He made it eight yards past the line of scrimmage before receiving a helmet-to-helmet hit from Bernard Pollard that should be featured on How Not To Play Football instruction videos and maybe in a courtroom. Here, you can see Ridley falling into the start of a full-blown fencing response. The scene was rendered all the more surreal by the fight for the ball a few yards from Ridley's supine body; the Ravens recovered and the Patriots never really got the wind in their sails back.
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But we don't want to end on a sad note, even if that hit deserves more consideration. No, on the night when Tom Brady and the Patriots got knocked out of the playoffs, we'd be remiss if we overlooked the schadenfreude angle. Here's Brady doing some weird leg kick thing that everyone agreed was a back idea, back when he didn't know that his team was about to get trounced:
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Baltimore heads to the Super Bowl guns blazing.