Your NFL Conference Championship Viewing Guide

This is the last week of multiple football games. What an incredible bummer. In a few weeks it will all be over and it will just be, ugh, February. Terrible. But anyway, let's enjoy the final real weekend of the year and worry about February in February.

San Francisco at Atlanta 3:00 p.m. (FOX): First up we have the Niners and Falcons. The Falcons got us started with the bizarre and juvenile shit-talking-or-whatever-this-is-supposed-to-be. So now it's up to Harbaugh and the Niners to respond. Maybe some jive-turkey gibberish? The funny thing about this game is that Atlanta is the home team and top seed and has actually exceeded the expectations thrust upon them by years of terrible playoff performances. San Francisco on the other hand, is the darling of the football world thanks in large part to the success and oversized likeability of the Colin Kaepernick. But, if they lose, he will have taken the 49ers just as far as the man he replaced took the team last year—bitter disappointment and no different than current laughingstock New York Jets.

Baltimore at New England 6:30 p.m. (CBS): Can you believe it? This is the first Conference Championship game repeat in 25 years! Unbelievable! Even more unbelievable? Ray Lewis is playing in this game, possibly his last ever, and talking about himself. I know!

"My Super Bowl year in 2000, we were never picked one time the entire season to win a game. Not one time," Lewis said. "But at the end of the day, we held the Lombardi Trophy as Super Bowl champs. That alone taught me a valuable lesson - that no one outside dictates how we play on the inside."

It's a testament to the insanity of pro athletes that they can operate in a profession that damn near demands narcissism and ego mania to succeed by always depending on the "no one believes in us" angle. Whatever, Ray.

Yakety yak.