Packers, Steelers Will Meet in Super Bowl XLV

(Newsroom America) -- The Pittsburgh Steelers will meet the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XLV at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas Feb. 6, after both teams won their respective conferences Sunday.

The Packers beat the Chicago Bears at home 21-14 to capture the NFC Conference championship and earn their fifth trip to the championship game. It was the 182nd meeting between the the longtime rivals.

Bears quarterback Jay Cutler was sidelined early in the third quarter with a knee injury, but it didn't matter much since he had been having trouble moving the football all afternoon.

Cutler was replaced by 16-year veteran Todd Collins who only lasted two series before his bad play led head coach Lovie Smith to replace him with third-year pro Caleb Hanie. Though he threw two picks, Hanie also led the Bears to a pair of touchdowns, include one TD pass. Hanie was intercepted in the final seconds of the game as the Packers iced their victory.

"We made a play to win the game and that's all that matters," Packers linebacker Clay Matthews said. "Keep playing defense the way we know how, and it's going to be tough for teams to beat us."

The Steelers, meanwhile, won the AFC Championship by jumping out to a 24-0 lead early on against the New York Jets, though they didn't score a point after halftime. Ultimately the Jets would put points on the board but in the end would come up short: Pittsburgh won at home 24-19 and earned their third trip to the Super Bowl in six seasons. In all, it will be Pittsburgh's eighth trip; the team already has the most Super Bowl wins in league history with six.

"We played a good half. We never played a good game, and that was the difference," Jets head coach Rex Ryan told CBS Sports in a post-game interview. "You get to this point, you've got to play a great game against a great opponent, and we played a good half and that was it."

Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger savored the victory after the game and was nonchalant about going to his third Super Bowl.

"Shoot, any time you get to the Super Bowl, it feels good," he said.

Roethlisberger came back from a four-game suspension at the beginning of the season to lead his team back to the championship.

"I don't care what you're going through or what's going on. We put a lot of stuff behind us early and found a way," said.

The Jets haven't played in a Super Bowl in 42 years, the last time they won the championship with quarterback Joe Namath.

© 2010 Newsroom America.

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