Well THAT was quite a weekend of football. I predicted each one of the games correctly, but I certainly could not have predicted the level of excitement and suspense that so enveloped the hearts and minds of football fans across the nation. The Falcons won their first playoff game with Matt Ryan under center, the 49ers' quarterback proved himself capable of taking over a game and outplaying an elite NFC rival quarterback, and the Patriots won in costly fashion as Rob Gronkowski once again went down with an injury in the playoffs. Far more exciting and surprising to many was how the Ravens-Broncos game finished. The Ravens were heavy underdogs and were going into a venue in which they had only won once in team history. In addition, they were going up against a team that trounced them 34-17 just over a month ago, and were about to face a quarterback that had beat them 9 straight times dating back to 2001. If all of that wasn't enough, the Ravens had little time to adjust to mile-high altitude and impossibly cold Denver winter weather. The funny thing is, I don't think any of that scared them one bit.
The Ravens may have actually blown the Broncos out if not for two major blunderous special teams errors that led to a punt and kickoff being returned for touchdowns. The fact remains, however, that special teams is a part of football and we must give credit where credit is due to the shortest player in the NFL (that little guy was 5'5"!) for running a pair of returns back on one of the best special teams units in the league this season. What truly impressed me was how the Ravens simply went right back to work after the Broncos scored so easily. Joe Flacco looked confident and relaxed as he launched bombs down the field to Torrey Smith, and hit Dennis Pitta and Anquan Boldin with surgical precision in incredibly high pressured clutch situations. Joe's pass on the run to Jacoby Jones wasn't lucky, it wasn't just the result of poor coverage by the Broncos, it was a great pass. Joe launched the ball on the run with little more than 30 seconds left in the game 54 yards in the air. Jacoby Jones slowed his route moments before but then quickened his pace for a double move that lulled the Broncos' corner and safety into playing far shallower than was necessary to defend that pass. It's clear to me that neither the corner nor the safety was tracking the ball correctly, and both were instead simply reading Jacoby Jones' body language and movements to try to judge where they assumed the ball would end up. They didn't count on #5 and that cannon he calls his right arm.
Possibly as almost satisfying as the spectacular plays made by Flacco and his receivers was the fact that his offensive line did exactly I predicted it would do in shutting down Vonn Miller and Elvis Dumervil. The offensive line had more trouble in opening up lanes through which Ray Rice could gain big chunks of yardage, but that didn't stop the Ravens from feeding their playmaker the ball. That strategy ultimately lead to Ray Rice accumulating 131 rushing yards with a couple of highly significant extended runs.
Ray Rice may have been limited to 2-4 yards on most of his carries, but the fact that Jim Caldwell never veered away from feeding Ray Rice the ball consistently tells me he has a great understanding just how to win with this team. Giving Ray Rice significant carries forces teams to commit to stopping him. When teams spend so much energy and effort to stop Ray Rice, typically thing open up in the passing game for the host of speedy and surehanded targets that make up the Ravens receiving corps. Combine that with the best pass protection in the league and a dose of play action fakes and you get 330 yards and 3 touchdowns on the road against the 3rd ranked pass defense in the NFL.
The Ravens offense, however, wasn't the only unit that impressed me. The Ravens defense held Peyton Manning to only 21 points in Denver, and that's not an easy task. There were times when I shook my head at missed tackles in the redzone and yelled at my television with demands of more pressure on Peyton Manning. The Ravens defense, regardless, made stops late in the game when it truly mattered. The Ravens major defensive stars played with an intensity to which Ravens fans have grown accustomed to witnessing in big pressure situations. Terrell Suggs absolutely flattened Peyton, Ray Lewis had an ungodly 17 total tackles, Dannell Ellerbe flew around the field making plays, and Paul Kruger forced a fumble and kept Manning on the run. Kruger's pressure ultimately led to the play that essentially sealed the game for the Ravens in overtime.
The Ravens acquired Corey Graham from the Chicago Bears in the offseason. Graham went to the Pro Bowl last year as a special teams player, but he insisted he could be productive as a defensive back--and, man, was he right. Graham intercepted a tipped Peyton Manning pass in the first quarter and returned it for a touchdown to give the Ravens an early 14-7 lead. It was not until overtime, however, that Graham made possibly the most important defensive play of the season. Under heavy pressure from Paul Kruger on his blind side, Peyton Manning scrambled to his right and then desperately threw a pass across his body towards former Raven Brandon Stokely. The ball, instead, found its way right into the arms of Corey Graham. That interception puts Graham right behind Ed Reed with the most interceptions of Peyton Manning in the playoffs (Reed has 3 and now Graham has 2).
I know that I could have spent time discussing some other rather exciting games from this weekend, but nothing else ended in quite the storybook fashion of the Ravens game. The Falcons game came right down to the wire, but it was more heartbreaking to a Seahawks team that so valiantly battled back from what appeared to be an almost certain loss to take their first lead of the game with only roughly 30 seconds left on the clock in the 4th quarter. The Seahawks struggled to pressure Matt Ryan in the first half without their star pass rusher, Chris Clemons, and found themselves down 20-0 at the half. I'm happy for future hall-of-famer, Tony Gonzalez, for finally winning his first playoff game and playing such an integral role in his team's victory, but I can't help but feel bad for a Seahawks team that fought so valiantly. This weekend was, nevertheless, the most exciting NFL playoffs weekend I've ever witnessed, and I'm quite sure that Ravens fanbase across the U.S. just grew rather significantly.
LOOKING AHEAD TO CHAMPIONSHIP WEEKEND
The Texans played a more competitive game against the Patriots last night, and cut the Patriots lead to 10 at one point in the 4th quarter. That, however, was simply not enough to ever actually frighten a Patriots team that moved the ball so effortlessly against a defense that dominated teams for the first half of the regular season. Some people may look at this game as an example of just how well the Patriots play, but I actually look at this game more as an example of how poorly the Texans defense plays on the road and how vulnerable the Patriots defense can be at times.
The Patriots should be somewhat worried after allowing the Texans to score 4 touchdowns in Foxboro last night. Remember that this is the same Texans team that struggled to get into the endzone a week earlier in their own stadium against the Bengals. The Patriots handled their business offensively, but beating up on the Texans defense is something that a great number of teams have done against the Texans in the last two months. The Texans defense allowed an average of 27.75 points per game in their last 4 road games, and that statistic is skewed by the fact that the Texans defense only allowed 10 points to the lowly Titans. In the other three road games during that time span, the Texans allowed an average of 33.66 points per game including giving up 42 to the Patriots.
The Patriots' next foe is certainly no stranger to playing playoff games in Foxboro. The Ravens are 2-2 in their last 4 games against the Patriots and 1-1 in playoff games played in Foxboro during that stretch. The Patriots are not the same team that the Ravens faced in the AFC Championship last season, but they are more or less the same team that the Ravens edged in Baltimore in Week 3...with one rather big exception. Last night Rob Gronkowksi once again broke his arm and will be out for the remainder of the playoffs. This takes away the biggest matchup issue for the Ravens as Aaron Hernandez is much shorter and more easily covered by Ravens linebackers and safeties. Sure, the Patriots still have playmakers capable of moving the chains against almost anyone, but the Ravens seldom struggle to cover speedy receivers of average height.
I certainly won't go into prediction mode in this particular post, but one has to imagine that the Ravens breathed a sigh of relief after hearing confirmation of Gronkowski's status for this weekend. Rob Gronkowski had 11 touchdowns in 11 games this season, and the Ravens defense could not stop the Patriots offense from driving down the field last season until Gronkowski came out with a high ankle sprain.
With all of that said, the Patriots now possess an added dimension of rushing ability to their offense this season, and that could pose issues for a Ravens run defense that has struggled at times this season. The Patriots may have serious trouble getting pressure on Joe Flacco with the current state of the Ravens' offensive line, and they may struggle to cover Torrey Smith and Dennis Pitta once more, but this game has the potential to be yet another shootout and anything can happen.
The 49ers looked dominant even without their Justin Smith this weekend. Their defense didn't look particularly strong as it allowed the Packers ultimately to pile up 31 points, but the offense looked more explosive than it had all season with Colin Kaepernick's spectacular 181 rushing yards on a mindboggling 11.3 average yards per carry. I didn't predict that kind of a rushing performance, but I did predict a big offensive performance from the 49ers because of just how poorly the Packers defense plays on the road. The poor Packers defense gave Kaepernick a rather large number of offensive opportunities to make plays. This is not something they should expect from any team they might face from here on out. The Falcon's defense isn't the most dominant in the NFL, but it's a defense that performs well enough to win games at home in the Georgia Dome.
If this game was played in Candlestick Park, I would have the 49ers winning by a significant margin, but I'll have to crunch some serious numbers this week and weigh out factors such as available personnel and injuries before I give either team an advantage here. The Seahawks, after all, are incredibly similar to the 49ers and the Falcons managed to edge them at home. The NFC Championship could be just as close as yesteday's Falcons-Seahawks matchup.
I'm proud to say that I have predicted the correct winner of every single game thus far in the NFL playoffs. Not a single ESPN analyst can say that, and I have yet to find or hear of a single analyst in the world of sports media who can say that. I preach over and over again the importance of throwing out irrelevant statistics and and paying close attention to significant changes in personnel when predicting the winner of an NFL game. The playoffs can be exciting and may sometimes seem unpredictable to many, but I'm now 15-1 in playoff predictions as long as I've been blogging, and that should tell readers that there is a definite logical approach to all of this. I don't make my methods secret, and I don't do any complicated math, but one way or another, the Purple Nightmare approach proves successful. Stay tuned for predictions and analysis of the upcoming AFC and NFC Championsips.
AS ALWAYS
GO RAVENS!!!
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