By , Andrew Lynch
Published January 21, 2017
The Atlanta Falcons are pretty heavy favorites over the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship game (Sunday, 3:05 PM ET, FOX and FOX Sports GO), and Atlanta's home-field advantage is undoubtedly a big reason why.
Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers knows his team might have a hard time with the crowd noise on Sunday. And as he was explaining just what Green Bay can do to negate Atlanta's edge, Rodgers couldn't help but sneak in a quick shot at the Falcons' disciplinary history.
Well, it's really loud in there. Whether that's all natural or not is yet to be seen, but, you know it definitely creates some problems as far as snap counts, and silent counts, and communication.
The way to combat that is you got to start strong and then push through their response. Usually, with any great home-field advantage, if the opposing team starts strong, the fans will look for any opportunity to get back in the game. You saw it last week. We went up 21-3, they clawed back and scored a touchdown, and you would have thought it was them up by 11 instead of down by 11. ... So you gotta start fast and push through that response and finish strong.
(function(d, s, id) { if (d.getElementById(id)) return; var js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = '//cdn4.wibbitz.com/static.js'; d.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].appendChild(js);}(document, 'script', 'wibbitz-static-embed'));
Win or lose, Sunday's conference championship title tilt will be the final game in the 24-year history of the Georgia Dome, and the fans should be rocking -- especially now that Rodgers called their authenticity into question. Remember, the Packers have traveled to Atlanta once already this year, as the Falcons came away with a 33-32 victory in Week 8.
If the Packers want to take the fans out of the game, NFL Hall of Famer and FOX Sports insider Cris Carter has a suggestion on how Green Bay can take control of its Super Bowl destiny against the Falcons.
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/packers-qb-aaron-rodgers-questions-authenticity-of-the-falcons-crowd-noise