If we were hoping for at least one competitive game during NFL Conference Championship Sunday, the New England Patriots were not about to help us out.
Just a little while after the Atlanta Falcons punched their ticket to Super Bowl LI with an impressive win over the Green Bay Packers, New England upped the ante big time.
The Patriots opened up a 10-0 first quarter lead over Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers before ultimately winning going away by the score of 36-17.
In reality, it was the Tom Brady show here. Along with receivers Julian Edelman and Chris Hogan, Brady took advantage of an inexperienced Steelers secondary to the tune of 382 yards and three touchdowns on 32-of-42 passing.
Hogan broke the Patrots' single-game postseason record for receiving yards with 180 yards nine receptions en route to scoring two touchdowns. Meanwhile, Edelman caught 8-of-10 targets for 118 yards and a touchdown.
Pittsburgh's defense was simply incapable of keeping up with the Patriots' passing offense here, continually leaving receivers open throughout the evening at Gillette Stadium. In fact, New England's receivers combined to catch 20-of-28 passes for well over 300 yards.
The same can't be said for a Steelers offense that lost Le'Veon Bell to a groin injury early in the game. Coming off two consecutive 150-plus yards playoff performances, Pittsburgh was relying on Bell to carry the offense here. With him injured for the vast majority of the game, the Steelers were able to put up just 54 yards on 20 pass attempts.
That didn't help a struggling Big Ben do anything of substance, as he completed 31-of-47 passes for 314 yards with one touchdown and one interception.
Antonio Brown, mired in a controversy over a postgame video he took following last week's win, didn't have the game-changing performance most expected. He tallied seven receptions for 77 yards on nine targets without a touchdown. Most of his yardage came with the game out of hand in the second half.
Making their seventh trip to the Super Bowl under Tom Brady, the Patriots will take on Atlanta in Houston two weeks from Sunday. On the other hand, the Steelers are now left wondering exactly what went wrong here.