Packers ram the ball in win over Rams to advance to NFC Championship Game 

When Aaron Rodgers plays his NBA2K video games during the offseason, one of his favorite things to do is to keep feeding a less-than-star player the ball and have him put up numbers so impressive that by the end of the game, when he steps to the foul line, the crowd is chanting "MVP! MVP!"

On Saturday, he tried to do the football version of that with his running backs.

Against the Rams in an NFC divisional-round playoff game at Lambeau Field, Rodgers took a back seat and instead became more of a facilitator in a game plan that relied heavily on running the football. In an NBA2K world, it would have been Aaron Jones or Jamaal Williams showered with those accolades from the fans. The Rams played a typical shell coverage that Rodgers said required the high-powered Packers offense to become more "dink and dunk" and plodding, and he was fine with that.

"Our plan was pretty simple," he said. "We ran kind of right at them . . . It started with the run and that was the plan for the entire game."

Well, almost the entire game.

Because midway through the fourth quarter, with the Packers leading by just one touchdown and unable to shake the Rams, the call came in from the sideline for a play-action pass and a deep throw to Allen Lazard, who already had dropped one of the few long throws Green Bay had attempted to that point.

Rodgers knew what that meant. "I was thinking touchdown for sure," he said.

He was right. Rodgers sold the fake handoff hard enough to draw the Rams’ secondary up, then lofted a 58-yard touchdown pass down the middle of the field to Lazard to give the Packers a 14-point lead with 6:52 left. By the time Rams quarterback Jared Goff was sacked on a fourth-and-14 from midfield with 4:59 remaining, the Packers had pretty much sewn up their 32-18 victory.

And just like in the video games, just as Rodgers imagined, the crowd at Lambeau was chanting "MVP! MVP!" But they weren’t doing it for a running back or some basketball stiff. They were doing it for him.

Rodgers may very well garner that award in the coming weeks, but first he’ll have a chance at doing something he’s never accomplished in his storied career: Win an NFC Championship Game on his home field. The top-seeded Packers will host either the Bucs or the Saints next Sunday for a ticket to Super Bowl LV, the first conference title tilt at Lambeau since 2008 and the first time Rodgers will play in such a contest.

One of the reasons the Packers were so effective running the ball — they had 188 yards on 36 carries — was the absence of another MVP-type player on the opposite side of the line of scrimmage. They opened the second half attacking an area of the field that usually is one of the least productive in the league, running the ball up the middle against the Rams.

That’s where Aaron Donald typically prowls and gobbles up ballcarriers. The defensive lineman injured his ribs in last week’s wild-card win over Seattle, though, and while he was able to play on Saturday, he clearly was not his disruptive self when on the field. More importantly, though, there were plenty of times when he was left on the sideline.

Perhaps no two plays illustrated the difference in the league’s top-ranked defense with and without their All-Pro lineman at full health than when Jones took a handoff straight up the middle — into what usually is Donald’s Dungeon — and broke loose for a 60-yard run on the first snap of the third quarter. Five plays later, Jones muscled his way into the end zone from the 1, breaking a tackle attempt in the backfield before pushing his way in. Donald was on the sideline watching it all.

Still, the Rams hung in there, even with Goff playing just three weeks removed from thumb surgery. Each time the Packers seemed poised to put the game away, they responded with a gutsy touchdown to keep it close. Their last score – after the Lazard drop that likely would have iced the game – showed off their creativity as much as their brawn. Rookie running back Cam Akers took a direct snap and ran in for a 7-yard touchdown, then scored the two-point conversion on a hook-and-lateral play in which Goff threw to Jefferson, who flipped it to Akers around the edge. That made it a one-score game, 25-18, with 1:41 left in the third.

They might have had a chance to tie it had they recovered A.J. Dillon’s fumble in the fourth quarter. Instead, it was Rodgers who scooped up the loose ball that rolled to his feet. Two plays later, he hit Lazard for the touchdown.

Rodgers was 23-for-36 for 296 yards and two touchdowns (he had a 1-yarder to Davante Adams in the first half). He also ran for a touchdown on a 1-yard dash. But it was the way the Packers won the game and manhandled the league’s top defense at the line of scrimmage — without many wow plays from Rodgers until the very end, without him being the "most valuable player" in the game plan — that has them poised for an NFC title.

Adams was asked after the game who might be able to stop the Packers if the league’s No. 1 defense couldn’t on Saturday.

"Nobody," he said.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.