The Green Bay Packers hit the road for the West Coast and the NFC Championship Game against the host 49ers on Sunday evening. Over the years the story of the playoffs and championship has been run the football and play defense that was the winning strategy. Well the ability to run the ball has been somewhat overrated in conference championship games. Teams that averaged more yards rushing per game are only 15-21 straight up and 16-20 against the spread. Similarly, teams that averaged more yards per rush were only 8-14 SU and 10-12 against the number the last eleven seasons. Tennessee and San Francisco qualify in both of those categories. Passing yardage means more than rushing yards in conference championship games as teams holding the edge in total offensive passing yards are 22-12 SU and 19-15 ATS. Teams that held the edge in efficient passing yards per attempt were not quite as good as overall passing yards, but they still held the edge with a record of 21-13 SU and 18-16 ATS. The 49ers hold the edge in both categories over the Green Bay Packers. The offensive yards per play has proven to be a profitable category for teams in the conference championship posting a record of 21-9 SU and 18-12 ATS with San Francisco once again holding the edge in this category over the Packers. Defensive rushing yards has been somewhat significant during the conference championship games. Teams with the edge in defensive yards per rush are just 17-17 SU but 20-14 ATS. The 49ers hold the edge in this category. Teams with the advantage in defensive passing yards allowed have posted a record of 20-14 SU and 21-13 ATS the last seventeen seasons in this round. Teams with the edge in defensive pass efficiency are also 20-14 SU and 21-13 ATS. The 49ers hold the advantage over the Packers in both categories and in fact the Niners are the NFL’s top-ranked team in both categories. Another defensive category that provides a play against situation is defensive yards per point teams that hold an advantage in this category are 7-9 SU and only 5-11 against the spread the last eight seasons and 7-15 ATS the last twenty-two games in this round. The Packers qualify as the play against team in this situation. The Niners ended a run of 0-6-1 ATS as six or more-point favorites last week by defeating the Vikings 27 to 10 as seven-point home favorites. The Niners did post a SU record of 5-2 over that span. San Francisco used a solid defensive effort to take down the Vikings limiting them to only seven first downs and this a week after the Vikings racked up twenty-two first downs in their upset of the Saints in New Orleans. The Niners rushed for 186 yards on forty-seven carries in their win over Minnesota with running back Tevin Coleman accounting for 105 of those yards. These two clubs met in Week 12 of this season with the Packers making their second trip to west coast in three weeks and San Fran took advantage defeating the Packers 37 to 8. Well it may have nothing to do with the trip west because the Packers lost to the Chargers on the west coast in Week Nine scoring just 11 points in their 26 to 11 loss to the Chargers. In the Packers loss to the Niners they converted just one of fifteen third downs and we do not expect the same performance, but we don’t believe the Packers will find much success against this Niners defense tonight. Our TPR Index projects a point advantage of 15.04 points. The MM projects a point differential of 8.12 against the current line range. The SIM Matrix has the San Francisco 49ers with a 74.16 percent advantage against the oddsmakers number. We want to play AGAINST NFL underdogs of three or more points having won at least seventy-seven percent of their games in Week Seven or more of the season because these underdogs are only 60-91 ATS in this situation. We want to play ON an NFL non-division home favorite of less than eighteen points with a total of 32 to 48.5 points coming off a home straight up win with six or more QB sacks last week versus an opponent not off a bye week. These home favorites are 24-6 ATS winning eighty percent of the time against the number. We will lay the chalk with the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday evening as they punch their ticket to the Super Bowl. NINERS