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Posted at 12:15 PM EST. 

3:05 PM EST. The NFC pits two all time great quarterbacks against each other again this week as the fifth seed Bradys of Tampa will travel north to the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field to battle the top seeded Packers. For one of these two quarterbacks, this game will be a much bigger footnote than for the other, as win or lose, Tom Brady's legacy is set. Sure a seventh Super Bowl would be nice, but dude already has more rings than Saturn. Meanwhile, for Aaron Rodgers, this is his best chance to get back to the Super Bowl since winning it in 2011. Much has been made about "the lost decade" of the 2010s, where the Packers spent many seasons after that championship run toiling in relative mediocrity. Poor drafting, bad coaching and average play were often good enough to win the NFC North and a playoff game or two, but nothing else. Even last season when Green Bay made it to another NFC Championship game, it was clear the Packers were not one of the league's best teams after getting run off the field by the 49ers.

If you've read or listened to any coverage of this game, the narrative out of Green Bay is that this team is different. Aaron Rodgers said as much this week when he talked about a revitalized offense that is now "clicking." The stats back that up with Rodgers going for 4,299 yards and a team record 48 touchdown passes. A big reason for the Packers' success was that they turned the ball over just 11 times, the lowest mark in the league. However, turnovers are a luck based statistic and those bounces often have a way of evening out over time. We're not saying today's the day, but it could be.

Speaking of turnovers, let's shift to the first time these two teams played this season, which was Week 6 down in Tampa. In that game, Rodgers threw two of his five interceptions this season. That game ended in a 38-10 route for the Bucs and was the most lopsided of the Packers' three losses. In addition to the interceptions, Rodgers was sacked five times in that game. That is a statistic that is very much not luck based.

You could take a walk around Las Vegas today and it might take you six hours to find somebody backing the Buccaneers. As high as the expectations were in Tampa when Tom Brady landed, it does feel a bit like the Bucs are playing with house money here. While they have an aged QB, he doesn't appear to be slowing down. Meanwhile, all of the pressure is on Rodgers and the Packers here. When you host a conference championship game, you are expected to win and that is doubly true at Lambeau Field.

The last time the Packers hosted this game was way back in 2008 when Brett Favre was still slinging and #12 was watching from the bench. The Packers would lose that game to the Giants in heartbreaking fashion and it would set off the series of events that led to Favre's ousting for Rodgers before the next season. Now, we don't think that Rodgers will have the locks changed on him if Green Bay loses this game, but if we know one thing about history, it's that we are doomed to repeat it. Head coach Matt LaFleur is in his second year and inherited a franchise great pivot, but he has a young, exciting prospect to mould waiting in the wings. Sound familiar

With so much attention paid to the quarterbacks, there has been little said about the players that surround them and to that end, the Bucs are superior in every way. Rodgers has one guy that can reliably catch the ball. Brady has two stud wideouts in Evans and Godwin and he also has Gronk. If Tampa falls behind, it has multiple weapons to mount a comeback. If the Packers go down, just as they did in Tampa, all you have to do is shut down Adams and make one of the other practice squad-level receivers beat you.

All that said, if Green Bay wins and covers here, Vegas may be taking out loans to pay off. When the entire world is on one side and the number isn’t moving, be very careful about siding with the masses.

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