AFC Championship-Baltimore Ravens vs New England Patriots-Pick, Preview, and Analysis

The AFC Championship features the top 2 seeds, and 2 teams that have quite the history even though they didn’t face off this year. Their last meeing was week 6 of last year when the Patriots won 23-20 in OT. They met twice the year before (2009), with the Pats taking the regular season meeting but the Ravens knocking New England out of the playoffs in the Wildcard Round.

Tom Brady and the Patriots will welcome the Ravens to Foxboro in Sunday's early Championship Game.(Photo by AP/Charles Krupa)

Both teams got big wins last week at home and come into this showdown in Foxboro with solid momentum as they look to get back to the Super Bowl. The Ravens have made the playoffs each year since 2008 but haven’t been in the Super Bowl since they won it all at the end of the 2000 season. The Patriots haven’t been to the final game since the Giants ended their hope of a perfect season after the Brady-Moss Pats went 16-0 in the regular season in 2007. The Pats would love a rematch with Eli, but will have a tough Baltimore defense to get past first.

This is the earlier of the two Championship Weekend games. Kickoff is scheduled for 3:00 PM ET on CBS. As we did yesterday for the NFC Championship, let’s take a look at each aspect of the game and see where this game will be decided…

Analysis

Baltimore Offense: The Ravens offense goes through Ray Rice first. Rice ran all over the Pats D in the early 2010 playoff game finishing with 159 yards. The Ravens rushing attack ranked 10th in the NFL this year averaging 125 yards per game, but last week they were stymied by a tough Houston D. Rice managed just 60 yards on 21 carries, but should find things easier going against a Pats D that allowed 117 yards per game this year which ranked them 17th in the League (more on the Pats defense in a minute.)

One of the deciding factors in the game will be the ability of Joe Flacco to stand in the pocket and deliver the ball to his TEs and receivers much better than he did last week. If the Pats commit to stopping the run, they may leave the deep ball open to either Anquan Boldin, rookie sensation Torrey Smith, or even Lee Evans who had a big catch on his only target last week. The Ravens love to utilize their pair of young TE’s Dennis Pitta and Ed Dickson, although they’re not nearly as effective as the Pats pair of tight ends.

Last week, the Ravens offense struggled mightily, and Coach John Harbaugh acknowledged earlier this week that his team will need to step it up if they expect to run with the Patriots.

Patriots defense: The Pats defense is the decisive unit in this game, in my opinion. Brady and company will be able to score enough points to win (see below), but the defense has looked so bad (at times this year) that it might not matter. They ranked 2nd to last in passing yards allowed per game, but 11th in scoring defense and 17th against the run (the Ravens attack of choice). They also rank 4th in takeaways averaging over 2 per game which could be a huge deciding factor in this game.

This defense hasn’t looked better at any point this year than it did last week when it held the Broncos to 10 points (7 off a turnover deep in their own end, 3 after the game was decided). They created 14 negative plays for an offense that beat the Steelers defense the week before which coming into the game was considered one of the elite units in the league. It’s difficult to tell how much of last week’s defensive showing was the result of the Broncos gimmicky style of rushing offense, but one thing is certain-the Patriots defense is playing better.

Part of their improvement is due to getting healthy. Getting Brandon Spikes and Patrick Chung back after both missed large chunks of time this year was a huge boost to this defense. Jerod Mayo played incredibly well in both the run and the passing game last week and he and Spikes will look to control the middle of the field against the screen’s and short passes that the Ravens use to bail out Joe Flacco.

Rob Gronkowski is just one of Brady's many offensive weapons. (AP Photo/Rich Lipski)

Patriots offense: The Pats offense averaged 428.0 yards per game (ranked #2 in the league) and 32.8 points per game (#3). Brady’s season with 5,000 passing yards and 39 TDs would’ve been considered a shoo-in for MVP if it wasn’t for the accolades of Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers. Ironically, it’s Brady who is the last of those 3 standing and the only one with a shot at finishing his season with the big W.

Brady’s main targets are his two TE’s who have been hyped and praised all year and rightly so. Rob Gronkowski set the record for TE in the regular season with 17 TD and had 3 more last week in the Divisional game. He and fellow TE Aaron Hernandez are virtually unguardable and even if you do manage to shut them down, there’s still Wes Welker (#2 in the NFL with 1,569 receiving yards) and former Super Bowl MVP Deion Branch to contend with.

The Pats running game with BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Danny Woodhead, and Stevan Ridley only adds to the incredible variety of looks the Patriots offense can give you. They even lined Hernandez up in the backfield last week so even when they’re in the huddle it’s impossible to predict who’s lining up where. That creates matchups that Brady will look to exploit, whehter that be with the size of Gronkowski on a DB or the speed of Woodhead on an LB. The Patriots averaged just a shade under 5 yards a carry last week against Denver and if they need to will employ the run game to create even more space for Brady to find one of his many targets.

There hasn’t been a hotter offense over the past several weeks than this one anywhere in the NFL. They’ve scored 40 or more in 3 of their last 4, 30 or more in 8 of their last 9 and haven’t been held under 25 since the first week in November when they faced the Giants back in week 9.

Ravens Defense: This veteran group will definitely have its hands full with the Brady bunch. The Ravens though, have been proving nay-sayers wrong all year. They beat the Steelers twice while limiting them to 27 points total in the 2 games. They’ve held opponents under 20 in 6 of their last 7 games and rank 3rd in scoring defense (16.4 points per game), 3rd in total defense (290.4 yds allowed per game), 4th in passing defense (195.5 yds allowed per game), and 5th in sacks per game.

The unit is led by the ageless Ray Lewis who is in his 16th year in the league. He’s not what he used to be in coverage, but still is an expert at reading and reacting to an offense and getting his personnel where they need to be. Ed Reed will also be a huge key to this one as he tries to bait Brady into throws he can pick off. He had the game-sealing INT last week to go along with 6 solo tackles from his Safety position. The Pass rush up front is led by Terrell Suggs, a defensive player of the year candidate, and Haloti Ngata who had 5.0 sacks and 3 fumble recoveries this season. The pass rush of the Ravens has fallen off recently though and they were unable to drop T.J. Yates last week. The front 7 getting pressure on Brady is the only way Baltimore can hope to win this game since, given time, Brady will find a way to get the ball to one of his versatile weapons.

Special Teams: Special teams for both these teams have been solid but not spectacular. The Ravens have given up return TD’s but covered well last week against the Texans. Don’t expect any big plays on returns, but special teams turnovers can be killers.

Both kickers are solid as well. If the game comes down to making a kick, both teams would like their chances of their guy making it.

Joe Flacco was bothered by the Texans pass rush, but can the Pats get to him as well? (Photo by AP/Evan Vucci)

Players to Watch

Joe Flacco vs Pats pass rush: If Joe Flacco is pressured by the Patriots pass rushers Mark Anderson, Vince Wilfork, Brandon Spikes, Shaun Ellis, and Rob Ninkovich, turnovers and incompletions will follow and the Ravens won’t be able to score with the Pats. If he can withstand the pressure (or if it’s blocked) and he can find Boldin, Smith, Dickson, and Evans down the field, the Ravens wil only add to the Patriots pass defense woes. This game comes down to Joe Flacco’s play; in my opinion it’s the most volatile of all the factors involved in the game. At times he looks pro-bowl level, while at other times he looks confused and flustered, (just ask Ed Reed).

Final Conclusion

The Ravens win if: Brady turns the ball over due to pressure and/or poor decisions. Flacco plays well and the offense rides Ray Rice while avoiding turnovers and keeping Brady and the Pats offense on the sidelines while they shred the Patriots defense.

The Patriots win if: This defensive turnaround is for real and they play like we saw last week against Denver. Tom Brady is Tom Brady and stays away from turnovers while finding receivers, TE, and RB’s as the situation dictates like he has all year.

My call: Tom Brady is 9-2 at home in the playoffs and the Ravens are just 4-4 on the road this year. The Ravens have lost to Seattle, San Diego, Tennessee, and Jacksonville on the road while only beating the Rams, Steelers, Browns, and Bengals. In other words their only non-divisional road win was against the St. Louis Rams. I don’t think they’ll be able to go into Foxboro against Brady playing at this level and win.

New England is not a perfect team. Their defense is seriously flawed and Brady has been turnover prone in their losses this year. I could see the Ravens coming in and pulling off the upset, but I don’t think it’s likely to happen with their inconsistencies on offense.

The Pats are the favorites, with the latest line being around 7.5. I would take the Pats and give the points since I think the final score is:

New England 34, Baltimore 20

Tags: AFC Championship, Baltimore Ravens, Championship Playoff Week, Joe Flacco, New England Patriots, NFL Picks, NFL playoffs, picks against the spread, tom brady