American football: Quartet ready to battle it out to reach Super Bowl

THE AFC and NFC Championship games take place tomorrow night, with four teams battling it out to get to the Super Bowl. The Green Bay Packers take on Chicago Bears at Soldier Field, before the New York Jets play Pittsburgh Steelers at Heinz Field.

The Packers, who are tipped to see off Chicago, will be playing their first NFL play-offs match since 1941 thanks to impressive results in the last month. With wins over the New York Giants and Bears at Lambeau Field to get into the play-offs, then victories at the Philadelphia Eagles and Atlanta Falcons in the play-offs, Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers is performing at a championship level, and he has the surrounding talent to keep this surge going.

This will be the 182nd meeting between the Packers and Bears in their 90-year rivalry, and none more anticipated than this one for the NFC Championship. Only once before have they met in the play-offs and that was a week after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, when the Bears beat the Packers at baseball's Wrigley Field.

The Bears haven't been to the Super Bowl since 2006, when they lost to Indianapolis. Green Bay last appeared in the big game in 1998, losing their title to Denver.

The AFC Championship follows at Heinz Field where the Jets, after disposing of Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts, then Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, try for the trifecta of Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks against Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers.