I must admit that too many factors and thoughts consumed my mind whilst writing yesterday's blog post about the upcoming AFC championship game. The idea of finalizing a prediction began to make my head hurt, but for a number of good reasons. I know I said I'd provide more positional analysis of the linebacker corps of each team and evaluations of Joe Flacco and Tom Brady, but I'd prefer to take more of a big picture approach to today's post, and besides, we already know Tom Brady beats out Joe Flacco every which way. Instead, let's take a look at a number of points that made making a prediction so very difficult:
1. The Patriots and Ravens usually play their games in Foxborough, and while the Patriots are 6-1 against the Ravens, the Patriots' victories have all come by 6 points or less. The lone Ravens win was far more dominant, but that's just the point: it's the LONE Ravens win.
2. Despite some big letdown games against less than stellar teams, the Ravens played way up to their competition and won all 7 games they played against playoff teams. Five of those games were in Baltimore, but the Ravens did win convincingly in Cincinatti a few weeks ago, and even more importantly, they beat the Steelers in Pittsburgh the week after the Steelers soundly defeated the Patriots.
3. Opposite to the Ravens, the Patriots won almost all of the games they played against losing teams, but lost both games against the only two teams they played that ended the 2011 regular season with a winning record, the Steelers and Giants. Note: Although the Broncos were a playoff team, they ended the regular season 8-8 and essentially backed into the playoffs because of their position atop an abysmal division.
4. The Patriots put up an astounding number of points this year...but they only played 4 games against teams with top 10 defenses. The Patriots played the Jets twice, the Steelers, and the Eagles. If you think the Ravens have had a poor offensive performance this year, please consider that they had the tall order of playing a total of 12 games against top 10 defenses including their playoff win against the Texans. Even the letdown games that the Ravens lost to losing teams came against two top 10 defenses in the Jaguars (6th ranked defense) and Seahawks (9th ranked defense) .
5. The Ravens are 13-4, but all 4 of their losses came on the road this year, and they're gearing up to travel to a stadium in which they've only ever won once. I would say that this is one of the most perplexing factors to take into consideration because the Ravens have had such a small amount of success in Gillette, but the Patriots have typically had a far more effective defense to match their high powered offense in the past. This is, however, a season of firsts for Baltimore under Harbaugh as the Ravens with Flacco at the helm had never beaten the Steelers with Ben Roethlisberger playing, and this year they swept and outscored the Steelers 58-27. Could it be that this is the year that the Ravens have the personnel and drive to beat any top ranked opponent? 7-0 against playoff teams is hard to argue with as compared to the Patriots' 2-2.
6. The Patriots have come back from early deficits to win in the final 3 games of the regular season, but the Ravens are undefeated this season when they lead at the half. The Patriots were down 17-0 against the Dolphins at halftime and came back to win 27-24. The Patriots were down 21-0 at the end of the first quarter against the Bills and then proceeded to score 49 unanswered points to win in convincing fashion. Even the Broncos were beating the Patriots 13-7 at the beginning of the first quarter during their regular season game in Denver only to be silenced by the Patriots 41-23.
7. The Ravens' defense has not done well against teams with quarterbacks that have a quick release, but the Patriots poor performance against the Steelers gives a blueprint of how a similar team held the Patriots to only 17 points. Lamar Woodley was often able to harass Brady with help from only his D linemen. Suggs will have to be able to do the same. The odds are that Terrell Suggs will have a monumental day as he has shown up with huge plays against all of the top rated teams the Ravens played all season and typically relishes the chance to flatten Tom Brady. Ed Reed will have to be on top of his game as the Patriots won't shy away from throwing over the middle with their big tight ends. This should provide some serious opportunities for interceptions.
After careful consideration and about 12 and a half hours of looking at statistics and countless clips of Patriots and Ravens games from this season, I have arrived at a prediction. I'm picking the Ravens to win this game. Yes, I'm clearly biased, but I simply can't get past the fact that the Patriots haven't beaten a single team with a winning record during the regular season. The Ravens play up to their competition and they should be able to bully the Patriots at the line of scrimmage enough to scare Brady into making some spectacular passes....to Ed Reed and Lardarius Webb. With such a terrible defense, the Patriots will have trouble stopping the Ravens running game. Against an abysmal Patriots secondary, the Ravens should be able to complete deep passes to Torrey Smith. Anquan Boldin will be too much to handle for Patriots corners from a physical standpoint, and the Ravens will use Dennis Pitta when they need to move the chains on 3rd down. The Ravens have been able to score points on many top defenses and the Patriots have allowed even bottom-of-the-barrel offenses such as the Redskins, Colts, and Dolphins to score 24+ points on them in the last 6 weeks. When faced with the solid and occasionally explosive offense of the Ravens as well as the top notch Raven defense, the Patriots simply won't be able to provide an edge. RAVENS 31-21.
AS ALWAYS, GO RAVENS!!
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