Morning Perk: Patriots, Falcons Punch Super Bowl Tickets

Monday morning. Your alarm goes off for the first time in two days, you head back to the office and then you spend the first few hours of the workday planning out how you’ll survive until closing time on Friday. Luckily, Poker Central and Death Wish Coffee have you covered. The world’s strongest coffee gives you a “Morning Perk,” recapping the weekend’s sports action on Monday and the best from across the internet on Friday.

Five months after the 2016 NFL season kicked off, both the Atlanta Falcons and New England Patriots are heading to Super Bowl LI. Throughout the season, these two teams were regularly talked about as the league’s elite options in their respective conferences, meaning putting them in Houston at the start of February was something you could predict for the last few weeks. Something you can never predict, how the ‘Twitterverse’ reacts to sporting events. Even though this weekend’s games we’re arguably blow outs, Twitter and NFL fans were the big winners. 

I broke 3 ribs once. I can’t even imagine what kind of painkillers they shot into Jordy Nelson to get him to play tackle football.

— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) January 22, 2017

The big pre-game news before the Green Bay Packers and Atlanta Falcons kicked off their NFC Championship game was that just two weeks after breaking three ribs, Aaron Rodgers’ favorite target, Jordy Nelson, was back. I’ve never broken a rib but I am still sore from a few pull-ups I did last Tuesday, meaning I know what kind of pain Nelson was facing. Unfortunately for Rodgers and Nelson, the Packers defense was facing the best pass catcher in football. Julio Jones out-gained Nelson, and almost the entire Packer WR corp., on one 3^rd quarter play and might be the most exciting NFL player to watch over the last few weeks.

Congrats Atlanta. Can we start a petition to get Migos to play Super Bowl halftime show now?

— scott vener (@brokemogul) January 22, 2017

Two ‘Migos’ references per weekend. It was a lofty goal but this week we didn’t have the luxury of Donald Glover acceptance speech. So, we’re back down to one “Migos”reference for this weekend but will make it work. In my heart of hearts, I hope music mogul and producer Scott Vener’s petition to get ‘”Migos” on the Super Bowl LI halftime show works too. While Lady Gaga is certainly going to put on a can’t miss show, an intermission of Bad and Boujee on repeat is something I’d sign up for.

You vs the wide receiver they told you not to worry about pic.twitter.com/9zvwxDTOZi

— Rodger Sherman (@rodger_sherman) January 23, 2017

Most football fans were first introduced to Chris Hogan on HBO’s Hard Knocks in 2012, when he was nicknamed “7-11” in Miami Dolphin’s training camp because he was always open. I was introduced to Hogan a half dozen years earlier though, since we went to the same high school in New Jersey. He was a two sport All-American in high school and watching him play on Friday nights made me realize that there was another level of athleticism that, despite my best efforts, I’d likely never achieve. A handful of other NFL teams likely didn’t think Hogan could achieve much in the league and they weren’t worried about cutting him, or letting him pick up the phone when New England called this summer. Boy, were they wrong.

Antonio Brown’s post game Facebook live post. pic.twitter.com/iFn8F2YSku

— KC Joyner (@KCJoynerTFS) January 23, 2017

The build up to the AFC Championship game mostly centered around off-the-field story lines, the biggest of which was Antonio Brown’s Facebook Live stream the week prior. Brown and the Steelers offense never went live on Sunday, while Tom Brady racked up nearly 400 passing yards, with half of those going to the previously mentioned Hogan. Because of Brown’s social media slip and his lackluster performance Sunday, the best thing for him to do over the next few months is to leave the tweets, posts and streams to everyone else. Just follow Ron Swanson’s lead.

The “Morning Perk” is sponsored by Death Wish Coffee, the world’s strongest coffee. Order yours today and follow Death Wish Coffee on Twitter.