I'm proud to say the Purple Nightmare Playoff Predictions have all proven correct thus far. The Texans, Bengals, Ravens, and Seahaws all won their first playoff games, and generally did so because of the reasons I suggested in my predictions last week. With that said, however, I was disappointed that I was right about the Texans as it means the Ravens will have to go into Denver instead of New England next weekend. I was also disappointed that the Redskins didn't prove me wrong and beat the Seahawks as I really felt the Skins fans' pain yesterday. As Ravens fans, we know exactly what it feels like to have a 14 point lead slip away in the playoffs to a team that knocked you out of the playoffs twice before. That's the NFL though, and I fully expect the Redskins to learn from this mistake going forward into next season. Let's take a brief look back each of the Wildcard Weekend games.
BENGALS AT TEXANS- This one probably felt incredibly frustrating for Bengals fans as they lost in the wildcard round at Houston last year as well. The Bengals were supposed to be the hotter team, right? The Bengals were a great road team with a 6-2 record, right? Well as I stated in my analysis, the Bengals offense simply wasn't performing well in the last month, but that fact was masked by the strength of opponents that the Bengals faced during that time period. The Texans were also supposed to be falling off the map, right? Well the Texans lost 3 out of 4 games in the final month of the season, but they lost all 3 of those games to playoff teams that were hot down the stretch, and 2 of those 3 losses were on the road. There is a recipe for beating the Texans and the Bengals simply didn't have it. The Bengals offensive line simply wasn't strong enough to keep J.J. Watt away, and it couldn't give Andy Dalton time or space to find receivers open downfield consistently. The Bengals are a good team, but they'll have to get better in the off-season to actually win a playoff game next year.
VIKINGS AT PACKERS- Obviously, no one outside of the Vikings organization had any idea that Christian Ponder wasn't going to play until hours before the game in Green Bay on Saturday. That certainly skewed the game in favor of the Packers, but I have a feeling that the ultimate result would have been the same regardless. The Vikings defense fought valiantly, but the Vikings offense simply doesn't yet possess the fire power to beat the Packers outside of Minneapolis. Aaron Rodgers is too good at home, and as Week 13 showed us a little over a month ago, even if Adrian Peterson runs for 200+ yards, the Vikings offense simply can't do enough at Lambeau field to win. As Ponder improves, this team will become quite dangerous in the next year or two if they can draft or acquire some good receiving targets to add depth and dimension to the Minnesota offense.
COLTS AT RAVENS- This one was the easiest to predict of them all. I'm proud to say that I predicted an 18 point win and wasn't far off as the Ravens pulled off a 15 point win and held the Colts out of the endzone entirely in a 24-9 beatdown. What's truly impressive is that the Colts ran 87 offensive plays yesterday...let me repeat that so you appreciate it--the Colts ran 87 offensive plays yesterday and not a single touchdown. Let's think about that for a minute, shall we? The Ravens previous two opponents combined for 94 offensive plays in the final two games of the regular season. This game was the ultimate "bend but don't break" game for the Ravens defense. Flacco had a nice game with almost 300 passing yards and 2 TD passes. Had it not been for 2 uncharacteristic fumbles from Ray Rice, this game would have been either over much sooner or an absolute blowout. Andrew Luck is a good young quarterback. He'll get better as he develops more accuracy. Luck is simply not ready to win a playoff game against a legitimate defense yet. Luck threw a handful of passes that could have easily been picked off, but he's a rookie and he should be feared more and more with each passing season. The return of Ray was as spectacular as it was bittersweet. The great thing, however, is that the Ravens only have to win 2 more games to get to the Superbowl; the bad thing is that those games will be in Denver and most likely Foxboro against the two greatest quarterbacks of the last dozen years...
SEAHAWKS AT REDSKINS- What can I say that hasn't already been said about this game? The Redskins could have kept scoring, but their coach let a rookie decide the fate of the team rather than taking charge and putting the best personnel on the field. When the Ravens played the Redskins, Haloti Ngata hit RG3 in a way that caused the quarterback's knee to hyperextend violently. RG3, however, chose to hobble back onto the field shortly thereafter, and he tried in vain to play before getting hit again and getting helped off the field by medical staff. At that point, Kirk Cousins came in and played brilliantly. He made all his throws including a game-typing touchdown followed by a 2 point conversion. Shanahan should have learned two vitally important points from the game against the Ravens. Point #1: Kirk Cousins is better than RG3 when RG3 has a leg injury that slows him down. Point #2: RG3 is not yet a good enough judge of his own limitations to be trusted with the final decision of whether or not he should play when hurt. Time to man up, Shanahan, you're too old to make that kind of a mistake.
A LOOK AHEAD TO DENVER
Most pundits give the Ravens little chance of beating the Broncos next Saturday. I fully recognize that the Broncos should be favored going into this game, but there are many points that should give Ravens fans hope and optimism going into the divisional round of the playoffs. In order to look forward to next weekend, first we have to look back to Week 15.
When the Broncos last came to Baltimore they faced a broken, depleted Ravens team. On defense, the Ravens were missing Ray Lewis, Dannell Ellerbe, Jameel McClain and Bernard Pollard. Terrell Suggs struggled mightily to play despite a partially torn right biceps, and as a result, Suggs saw a rather limited number of snaps. On defense, the Ravens were missing Marshal Yanda and Ed Dickson, and both Torrey Smith and Bernard Pierce game out of the game with injuries. As a result of the depleted defense, the Ravens couldn't stop the run against a Denver team with a good offensive line and a solid running game. On offense, the Ravens simply couldn't protect Flacco or get the running game going with a patchwork offensive line and without their comlimentary running back and deep threat receiver for most of the second half of the game. Flacco was hit 18 times couldn't really make plays until the Broncos got into a late game prevent-defense mode.
Now let's fast forward to yesterday's wildcard round matchup. The Ravens finally started Bryant McKinney at left tackle and moved Michael Oher back to his natural position at right tackle. Michael Oher struggled at times, but McKinney didn't allow a single sack or hit and only allowed one quarterback hurry-up on his end of the line during the entire game--against Dwight Freeney! With Marshal Yanda back on the line, the Ravens found success running the football as Bernard Pierce ran for 103 yards and Ray Rice ran for 70. Flacco also had more time to hit receivers deep, and he did so quite effectively on multiple passes where the ball travelled nearly 60 yards.
On defense, the Ravens were back to their form from weeks 9-12 as they held the Colts without a touchdown all day long despite the fact that the Colts put up at least about 20 points against almost all of the teams they played this season. Having Ellerbe back means the Ravens are better in pass coverage, better at blitzing, and better in run defense. Having Ray Lewis and Bernard Pollard only further bolstered the teams ability to tackle as Ray led the team with 13 and Pollard made receivers fear him with devastating (and clean) hits. Suggs had a relatively quiet day, but his presence forces teams to account for him and he certainly added to the pressure on Andrew Luck.
Looking ahead to next week, the Ravens will have to deal with being on the road against a quarterback that his won 9 straight games against them. This is a certainly a daunting task, but the return of all of the aformentioned starters will give the Ravens better odds of winning in Denver than they had of winning in Baltimore with a depleted staff. First, the Broncos will have a much tougher time stopping the Ravens in the running game with Marshal Yanda back in, and they'll have a much tougher time pressuring, hitting, and sacking Flacco with McKinney at left tackle and Oher back on the right side. If those two can keep Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis off of Flacco for the most part, they should have reasonable success against the likes of Von Miller and Elvis Dumervil.
Peyton Manning and his offense will have the benefit of homefield advantage this time, but a large part of their success was due to their ability to run the football on a Ravens team that was missing its 5 leading tacklers. The Ravens will have most of those tacklers back in this matchup, and this will force Peyton Manning to air the ball out against a team that possesses the one defensive player who has given Manning more fits in the playoffs than any other player in Manning's career: Ed Reed.
Ed Reed has intercepted Peyton Manning 3 times over the course of 2 playoff games. That number would have increased to 4 except one of Reed's picks was nullified by a penalty on Corey Ivy 3 years ago. Reed isn't the player he once was, but there's no doubt that he absolutely plays fearless football in the playoffs regardless of his physical ailments. Ed Reed was injured and many thought his skills to be diminishing last season, but Reed silenced his critics by notching his 8th playoff interception against the Texans to put him tied for 2nd place on the list of players with most career playoff interceptions in NFL history. Ed needs one more pick to tie Ronnie Lott as the NFL's all time leading playoff interception leader. Ed also had some nice passes defensed yesterday as his secondary embarrassed a Colts receiving unit that scored on almost everyone else this season.
I know that many of you have your doubts that the Ravens can beat a Broncos team that hasn't lost since October, but please believe that the Ravens have a better shot at winning next weekend than they did last time the Colts came to town. This Ravens team is highly motivated and possesses some of the most talented weapons in the NFL on offense and the two greatest defensive leaders in the NFL on defense. It also helps that those defensive leaders always play their best when the post-season rolls around. Don't lose faith now, Baltimore; let's hold on to #52 as long as we can. This is when we see what is truly in the hearts of these Ravens.
AS ALWAYS
GO RAVENS!!!!!!
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