Sports

Packers’ Rodgers has the last laugh

CHICAGO — With one dumb throw, the best postseason career quarterback rating in NFL history was up in smoke. And now, so might be an NFC championship Green Bay already should have put away.

Maybe that’s what Aaron Rodgers had been thinking early in the third quarter, when from the Chicago 6, he tried to force the ball through Brian Urlacher to Donald Driver. But once Urlacher started up field with his interception, all Rodgers was thinking was that he was the last man between 14-0 and 14-7.

“I started sprinting, hoped I would at least catch up to him,” said the quarterback. “When he turned and faced me, I had to make a stand.

“I missed a couple tackles this season. The joke that’s not real funny in the quarterback room is when you look silly trying to make a tackle after a pick.”

The joke that would have gone without a laugh in Green Bay forever would have been a Packer team knocking out Jay Cutler, chasing backup Todd Collins, and still getting upset one game short of the Super Bowl for a second time in four years. So Rodgers dove at Urlacher’s feet, and Goliath stumbled down at the Chicago 45.

“One of my worst throws,” the quarterback said with a smile. “One of my better tackles.”

Three plays later, Nick Collins almost picked Todd Collins, which didn’t save Rodgers’ quarterback rating (55.4 down from a career 129.4) any more than his shoestring dive. It only may have saved the game.

The last time a quarterback of a No. 6 seed made a game-saving tackle it was Ben Roethlisberger after a Jerome Bettis goalline fumble in Indianapolis. The Steelers went on to win the Super Bowl, as might Green Bay, never mind that Rodgers, last week the hottest thing since James Harrison’s collar, suddenly went colder yesterday in the second half than the seven-degree Soldier Field wind chills.

The Packers got it done anyway, 21-14, in spite of Rodgers and because of him, too.

“I wanted to play better obviously,” he said. “But in the end I contributed in a few ways and we’re moving on.”

The plays of the game — one of the worst in conference championship memory — were a tackle by a quarterback and a touchdown by a defensive lineman. B.J. Raji ran in an interception of third-string Caleb Hanie to apparently put it away at 21-7 but not quite, thanks to a ridiculously poor effort by Collins on a 35-yard touchdown pass from Hanie to Earl Bennett.

In four plays, a third-stringer had taken Chicago 60 yards to make it 21-14. So when Rodgers, who had taken a helmet-to-helmet hit by Julius Peppers in the third quarter, failed to move Green Bay again, punter Tim Masthay (five inside the 20 and a sixth that just missed) and the Packer defense had to win it once more.

Hanie dinked and dunked to two first downs until Sam Shields’ second interception sealed it. The Bears, manhandled by the Giants early in the season and by the Patriots late in the season, were propped up like bowling pins for Rodgers, who threw some gutter balls. And the second-best scoring defense in the league (behind Pittsburgh) mowed Chicago down regardless.

“Our [season-long] formula, really our formula coming into this game, was field position,” said coach Mike McCarthy. “We were struggling offensively, showed confidence in our defense and punter.

“Our punt coverage was outstanding. Devin Hester (three returns for 16 yards) is a special player.”

So is Rodgers, who wasn’t yesterday. The Packers had too much for Chicago regardless.

jay.greenberg@nypost.com