【India】

Perhaps you missed that final pass during Sunday's Packers vs. Cowboys playoff game.

Rodgers rolls left,India eludes a deluge of defenders, buys all the time in the world — as he often does — and then hits a streaking Jared Cook running across the field, all with just seconds on the clock. It lets kicker Mason Crosby come out to break a tie as time expires and, thus, propels Green Bay into Sunday's NFC Championship game.

SEE ALSO: Aaron Rodgers disappeared into a small tent and left everyone super confused

It was the kind of play only a Hall of Fame-bound quarterback could complete. But what makes the toss even more impressive -- and demonstrates why Rodgers is in a class of his own right now -- is that he made the whole thing up.

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That's right. He just made the whole thing up on the fly. Like you'd do on the playground. Except Rodgers is doing it on football's grandest stage, all while dodging 300-pound human bullets sprinting at freakishly high speeds who want nothing more than to tear his head off.

Rodgers is out there playing arguably the best football of his career. He's led the Packers out of a tumultuous, early-season nose dive right into a formidable playoff run and, more importantly, he has his team within one step of the Super Bowl.

Such has become the ethos of Rodgers, a Hail Mary-tossing, championship belt-totting, X-Men reserve who has the Herculean coordination to swat a single fly with a golf club. (OK maybe not, but you get the point.) He's out-shined the three stellar quarterbacks still standing with a holster of depleting weapons, and he's making a strong argument at becoming one of the best postseason quarterbacks to ever play the game.

Not convinced? Let's review the evidence.

The humble cast

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To say Rodgers isn't getting much help around him isn't entirely fair to his teammates. But if you think Green Bay's offense is comparable to, let's say, the high-flying attack of a team like the Atlanta Falcons, you're sorely mistaken.

Rodgers has been operating with a plug-and-go list of players around him. Star wide receiver Jordy Nelson fought offseason knee surgery to get back on the field this year, fellow grab-and-dash receiver Randall Cobb has been been on and off with an ankle injury and Eddie Lacy — a bulldozing truck once considered one of the best running backs in the league — has become all but forgotten after ankle surgery placed him on injured reserve in October.

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That laundry list of injuries would render most NFL offenses useless, and for most teams, trying to move the ball against playoff-caliber defenses without star talent is about as effective as trying to pierce the side of a blimp with a butterknife.

The injuries are, yet again starting to pile up before the Packers' game Sunday, but none of it has slowed Rodgers thus far. He threw for four touchdowns against the Giants in the divisional round and two to thwart the playoff favorite Cowboys last weekend.

But you really only need to watch one pass to see what Rodgers is capable of.

The Hail Rodgers

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There's a specific reason they call it the "Hail Mary."

Put simply: It's not supposed to work. The Hail Mary is a last-ditch prayer of a play that is most often reserved for the most desperate of situations. In reality, the ball more often than not lands in the other teams' hands.

That's not the case for Rodgers, and he showed why at the end of the first half against the Giants two weeks ago.

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With seconds to go before halftime, Rodgers stood at midfield, stepped up and let go a heave toward the endzone. The ball soared through the air, parted the clouds and stars, received a kiss by the ghost of Vince Lombardi himself and then fell — gently — into the hands of Cobb for touchdown as time expired. If you don't believe it, then just watch the video for yourself.

Oh, and he's done it before. And he also did it to win a playoff game against the Cardinals last year.

Spectacle is routine when you're talking about Rodgers. Much like the grin-wearing, light-hearted gunslinger named Brett Favre who came before him, Rodgers has the uncanny ability of making the difficult play look like it's something the common man could do in the parking lot. As scouts would say, he finds a way to make the players around him better, which — alone — is no easy feat to achieve.

But can he win it?

Winning a Super Bowl takes just as much luck as it does skill. And if you're Rodgers, you seemingly can create your own luck.

Thing is, the three other teams remaining in the playoffs have impressive quarterbacks themselves. The Falcons boast the most-potent offense in the league behind Matt Ryan, while Ben Roethlisberger and Pittsburgh's cast of explosive weapons aren't too far behind.

Then there's Tom Brady, of course, who carries the entire Patriots roster on the strength of his arm year after year, no matter how much time and age try to get in his way.

All will make for stiff competition for Rodgers, who's looking to go to and win his first Super Bowl since 2011. But by the looks of things right now, this is Rodgers' league and everyone else is just playing in it.

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