NFC Conference Championship Redskins (12-4) @ Broncos (13-3)

The NFC #2 seed Redskins traveled to take on the #1 seed Broncos on their home turf on a humid Thursday night. The Redskins got a hot start as they recovered a Dion Lewis fumble on the opening play of the drive. After a couple penalties on both teams, including a costly 3rd and long necessary roughness penalty on the Broncos, the Skins scored first as Matthew Stafford found Julio Jones from 10 yards out. The tides would quickly turn in the Broncos favor as the Redskins got sloppy. Penalties heavily favoring the Broncos, on top of 4 Redskins defensive injuries, allowed them to rattle off 21 straight points which consisted of 3 short yard TD runs. With the half winding down, the Broncos were stopped short just outside of field goal range and elected to punt, BUT a Redskin special teamer ran into the punter which gave the Broncos 5 yards and allowed them to kick a field goal to boost the lead to 24-10. The Redskins were able to dink and dunk their way down the field against a tough Denver set of defensive cards and got into field goal range for a 57 yard FG by Stephen Gostkowski. The Redskins were unable to do anything on the opening drive of the 2nd half, and the Broncos piled on more points with another field goal. Within 45 seconds of that score, Matthew Stafford found Julio Jones again from 11 yards out for another touchdown that was set up by a 58 yard scamper by Bilal Powell on a YAC A LG. Broncos would answer on the very next play from scrimmage as Dion Lewis took a pass from Tom Brady 80 yards for a score. Going into the 4th quarter, the score was 34-17 in favor of the Broncos. The Redskins would score within the first minute of the 4th quarter to make in a 10 point ball game. The Redskins would then get a big turnover from Kirk Cousins (replacing the injured Tom Brady) that would give them great field position. Unable to punch the ball in the end zone after 9 attempts within the 13 yard line, the Skins kicked a field goal on 4th and goal from the 2 to cut the lead to 7. The Broncos would then run the clock down and punt. With 4:30 left in the game, Matthew Stafford stared 80 yards downfield at the end zone he needed to get to to tie. On the backs of Julio Jones and Bilal Powell, the Redskins marched down the field and scored a touchdown with 0:45 left. After a short debate, the Redskins decided to kick and play for overtime instead of the win. The Redskins would win the coin toss in OT and would punt the ball after 1 first down. A few plays into the drive, Tom Brady threw long and was picked off by Richard Sherman, who returned the ball 20 yards deep into Bronco territory. After a few plays, the Redskins kicked a 2-9&12 FG to win the game and go to the OFM Super Bowl.

Final Score: Redskins 37 - Broncos 34

The Broncos were hurt by turnovers in the game with a -5 differential. 

Good game to John.