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When an NFL team reaches the conference championship game, it has established its bona fides. Rarely do teams get this far by accident.

Championship game participants usually come in two forms. Powerhouses that earned the right to host divisional-round games with dominant regular seasons. Or late-season streakers, teams that found themselves over the course of the long season and are playing their best football at the right time.

Both are present this season. The Patriots and Falcons were titans from the outset, securing their respective conference's No. 1 and No. 2 seeds. The Steelers and Packers are the league's two hottest teams. Neither has lost since mid-November. Pittsburgh has won nine consecutive games; Green Bay eight in a row.



The teams share several common denominators: dynamic offenses; elite quarterback play; opportunistic defenses; and good health.

So what can we - and the Saints - learn from the NFL's final four? Plenty. And you probably won't be surprised to learn the Saints compare favorably in some areas and not so well in others than you'd expect for a 7-9 team.

A look at some trends and common denominators from the last teams standing on the NFL's championship weekend:

1. Offense wins championships

The NFL has been turned on its head. Rule changes have tilted the field toward the offense. The 2016 season exemplified this truth more than ever. All four championship game participants boast Top 10 offenses. The Falcons (33.8, 1st), Patriots (27.6, 3rd) and Packers (27.0, 4th) also ranked among the league's four highest scoring teams. Offense wins.

How the Saints stack up: Scoring points and moving the chains have never been a problem for the Brees-Payton Saints. They led the NFL in total offense and finished second in scoring with averages of 421.8 yards and 29.3 points a game. A healthy Mark Ingram and the addition of dynamic rookie receiver Michael Thomas took the Saints to a level in 2016 they hadn't seen since 2011. Best of all, right guard Jahri Evans and fullback John Kuhn are the only offensive regulars not under contract through next season.

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