Atlanta Falcons

Sunday's Packers-Falcons NFC Championship already set an NFL gambling record

Published Jan. 21, 2017 1:21 p.m. ET

Andrew Lynch

Every football fan on the planet is expecting the Green Bay Packers and Atlanta Falcons to score all of the points on Sunday in the NFC Championship game (3:05 PM ET, FOX and FOX Sports GO) — and with good reason.

The over/under for total points scored on Sunday is up to 61.5 at the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas. According to betting website OddsShark.com, that's the highest over/under in NFL playoff history.

The next-highest over/under was the 2012 NFC Wild Card game between the Detroit Lions and New Orleans Saints. That number closed at 59.5, which ended up way low when the Saints beat the Lions 45-28 (for a combined total of 73 points).

In case you're curious, the record for most points in an NFC Championship game is 66, as the San Francisco 49ers topped the Dallas Cowboys 38-28 on Jan. 15, 1995.

The focus will be on Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan on Sunday, as it should be. They're two of the best quarterbacks in the NFL; Ryan is probably the 2016 MVP, while Rodgers lifted his Packers into the playoffs with some of the most spectacular QB play you'll see over the second half of the season.

Yet NFL Hall of Famer and FOX Sports insider Cris Carter explained on this week Make Me Smarter football podcast that the key to Atlanta's success — and, perhaps, whether this game goes over or under — is the Falcons' rushing attack. If the Packers can take the ground game away, they might be able to pull off the upset.

Atlanta opened as a 5.5-point favorite, and the line is currently anywhere from Falcons -4 to Falcons -6, via OddsShark.