As we prepare for Sunday’s NFC Championship Game between the San Francisco 49ers and Philadelphia Eagles, it’s time to look back at the best this conference has had to offer in the past.
Three different NFC Championship Games featuring the 49ers rank among the top five ever. They came out on top in one, only to lose the other two in disastrous fashion. One began the 49ers’ dynasty while another ended it.
Looking at more modern iterations, the Seattle Seahawks find themselves involved in two epic conference title contests while the Minnesota Vikings were in the losing end of another.
Below, we rank the five-best NFC Championship Games heading into Sunday night’s tilt inside Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.
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5. 1990 NFC Championship Game: Fumble heard around the world
- Final score: New York Giants 15, San Francisco 49ers 13
The San Francisco 49ers were coming off back-to-back Super Bowl titles. They had recently finished up a 14-win regular season. George Seifert’s squad just destroyed a good Washington team in the NFC Divisional Playoffs.
On the other side was a Giants squad spearheaded by head coach Bill Parcells and a little-known defensive coordinator in that of Bill Belichick. New York had won 13 regular-season games and destroyed the Chicago Bears by the score of 31-3 in the divisional round.
Everything was set up for an epic NFC Championship Game. However, things pretty much went to hell for San Francisco at its old stomping grounds of Candlestick Park.
Joe Montana suffered a serious injury in the third quarter of the game and did not return. In fact, he would not play another regular-season game for the 49ers until December of 1992. Despite this, Steve Young helped the 49ers maintain a lead. It looked like San Francisco was headed to its third consecutive Super Bowl.
The 49ers got the ball at New York’s 40-yard line with 2:42 remaining in the fourth quarter and up 13-12. That’s when the improbable happened. Star 49ers running back Roger Craig put the ball on the turf with Giants great Lawrence Taylor recovering it.
New York ultimately put together a short drive with Matt Bahr connecting on the game-winning field goal as time expired. For San Francisco, Craig’s fumble ended up being his last rush attempt in the scarlet and gold. A dynasty was ended. As for New York, it would go on to defeat the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXV — a game since nicknamed “wide right.”
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4. 2014 NFC Championship Game: Seattle Seahawks’ comeback
- Final score: Seattle Seahawks 28, Green Bay Packers 22
Let’s set the stage for this epic NFC Championship Game battle between Russell Wilson‘s Seahawks and the Aaron Rodgers-led Green Bay Packers.
Seattle posted a 12-4 record and was attempting to repeat as Super Bowl champions. Led by the “Legion of Boom” secondary, these Seahawks finished the regular season first in points allowed at under 16 per game.
Green Bay was a completely different monster with Rodgers earning NFL MVP honors en route to leading the league’s top-scoring offense. Something had to give, right?
The Packers took a 16-0 halftime lead courtesy of four Seahawks turnovers, including three interceptions from Russell Wilson (he had thrown just seven during the regular season). That’s when Seattle mounted a comeback for the ages. It was down 19-7 with under 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter following a Mason Crosby field goal.
After another Wilson interception with 5:13 remaining, this one seemed to be as good as over. The quarterback would go on to lead Seattle on a 69-yard touchdown drive, setting up an onside recovery on the next play. Like clockwork, Seattle would score another touchdown with a two-point conversion just 44 seconds later.
Green Bay then drove down for a game-tying field goal to force overtime. A legend was then reborn in the Pacific Northwest with Wilson leading Seattle down the field on a game-winning touchdown drive, culminating in a 35-yard pass to Jermaine Kearse for the win.
Unfortunately for the Seahawks, they would go on to lose to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX after an ill-fated decision to pass in the red zone late in the fourth year. Yeah, we’re sure Seahawks fans know all about this play.
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3. 2013 NFC Championship Game: Richard Sherman haunts rival
- Final score: Seattle Seahawks 23, San Francisco 49ers 17
The Seahawks and 49ers rivalry defined this era of NFL football. Then-San Francisco head coach Jim Harbaugh and Pete Carroll of the Seahawks just did not like one another. The games on the field were among the most-heated in modern NFL history.
That was no more true than during the 2013 NFC Championship Game. Led by Colin Kaepernick, San Francisco was looking to make its second consecutive appearance in the Super Bowl. The only thing standing in its way was a Seahawks defense, led by the aforementioned “Legion of Boom,” that yielded just 14.4 points during the regular season.
Tied at 10 midway through the third quarter, Kaepernick hit Anquan Boldin on a 26-yard touchdown to give San Francisco a 17-10 lead. No slouch of its own, San Francisco’s third-ranked defense thought it had Seattle on the ropes. It wasn’t to be.
The Seahawks ultimately took a 20-17 lead on a dramatic Russell Wilson touchdown pass to Jermaine Kearse early in the fourth quarter. Late in the final stanza, Kaepernick had driven the ball down to the Seahawks 18-yard line with the 49ers trailing by six. He attempted a pass to Michael Crabtree with future 49ers star Richard Sherman in coverage. The rest is, as they say, history.
Sherman’s tipped pass led to an interception, sending Seattle to its first Super Bowl title while ending the 49ers’ hopes of repeating as conference champions. A rivalry wasn’t only born, it was renewed. And in reality, this proved to be the end of Harbaugh’s success with San Francisco. The 49ers would go on to finish 8-8 the following season, firing Harbaugh shortly thereafter without a Super Bowl ring in hand.
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2. 2009 NFC Championship Game: “Bountygate” scandal starts
- Final score: New Orleans Saints 31, Minnesota Vikings 28
So many storylines. The 2009 NFC Championship Game featured legendary quarterback Brett Favre starring for his former rival Vikings against a Saints squad that had won 13 games during the regular season and finished No. 1 in the league in scoring.
Stars were out inside the Superdome in New Orleans. Drew Brees was coming off a brilliant season for the Saints, aided by the likes of Marques Colston and Reggie Bush. Favre had Adrian Peterson, Sidney Rice and Percy Harvin to call his own. This was going to be absolutely hectic.
The game itself did not prove to be a let down. Favre took a beating throughout a game that started the entire “Bounty Gate” scandal (more on that later). Despite this, he had Minnesota in position to win the game late in the fourth quarter. With the it tied at 28-28, the Vikes had possession at New Orleans 33-yard line with 19 seconds left. Unfathomably, Minnesota was called for a 12-men on the field penalty, pushing it out of field goal range. On the very next play, Favre threw an interception to send it to overtime.
Brees would then lead the Saints down the field to Minnesota’ 22 before Garrett Hartley nailed the game-winning field goal.
New Orleans would go on to defeat the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV two weeks later. The major backdrop here was that aforementioned scandal in which the Saints’ coaches were accused of putting bounties on the heads of opposing players.
In March of 2012, the NFL sanctioned the Saints and their coaches. Defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was suspended indefinitely. Head coach Sean Payton was suspended for the entire 2012 campaign. New Orleans was also forced to forfeit two second-round picks and fined $500,000 in one of the biggest scandals in modern professional sports.
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1. 1981 NFC Championship Game: “The Catch”
- Final score: San Francisco 49ers 28, Dallas Cowboys 27
The end of one dynasty. The start of another. Led by Bill Walsh and young quarterback Joe Montana, the 1981 49ers came out of nowhere to post a 13-3 record. In fact, this team had won a combined 10 games over the previous three seasons and had posted just one winning season over the past decade.
On the other side was a dynastic Cowboys team pretty much at the end of its run. Danny White had replaced franchise legend Roger Staubach the year prior. Despite continued success, an aura of inevitability stood over the Cowboys. Staubach’s tenure had ended in a Super Bowl and playoff loss the years prior. Dallas had not won a Super Bowl since the 1977 season and was a veteran-laden team.
Despite this, most figured that Tom Landry’s Cowboys could take out a youthful 49ers team for one last Super Bowl appearance in that era. It was not to be.
San Francisco found itself down 27-21 with the ball at their own 11-yard line and less than five minutes left. Could Dallas’ seventh-ranked defense hold an inexperienced 49ers offense led by Montana?
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Joe Cool earned his nickname here, driving San Francisco down the field 83 yards to Dallas’ six-yard line. Facing third-and-3 from the Cowboys six, Montana rolled right away from pressure and seemingly attempted to throw the ball away at the back of the end zone. That’s when Dwight Clark leaped for the ball, and in heroic fashion, came away with it. Legends were born. “The Catch” was defined.
Interestingly enough, Dallas still had time to come away with the late-game win. The team took over with 58 seconds left and needing merely a field goal from the great Rafael Septien. Unfortunately, a sack of Danny White resulted in a lost fumble and the end of the Cowboys’ contending teams under Tom Landry. Meanwhile, Joe Montana and the 49ers started a streak that would see them earn team of the 80s honors with four Super Bowls.