It's Friday and you know what that means, it's 2 days away from Sunday, which means we're only 2 days away from the AFC and NFC championship games. In case you didn't know, in the NFC Championship game the San Francisco 49ers will be heading to the Georgia Dome to take on the Atlanta Falcons and Matt Ryan (he's a Boston kid gotta give him a shout out). In the AFC Championship, the New England Patriots take on the Baltimore Ravens at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro. So the moment you've all been waiting for: my predictions for both championship games.
NFC Championship Game: 49ers win, 35-21
I think this will be a pretty good game start to finish, but I think the 49ers have the edge in this one. For starters, Atlanta has shown to have trouble against the run all year long, and the strength of this 49ers team is their power run game behind Frank Gore. Oh yea, and that guy Kaepernick is a pretty good quarterback too. The 49ers run the zone read much better than the Seahawks do, and in the end it will end up destroying the Falcons defense. Colin Kaepernick will be the difference maker, with his legs and with his arm. I've watched him a couple times this year, and man that dude can throw.
In terms of Atlanta's offense against the 49ers D, I don't see it going well for the Falcons. I know the Falcons have weapons across the board with Julio Jones, Roddy White, Tony Gonzalez, and Matt Ryan leads that passing attack, but it just won't work against this defense. You have to be multi dimensional to beat this 49ers team, and the rushing attack of Atlanta is not a huge concern for this defense.
Sorry Falcons fans, but between the dominating 49ers defense and their potent multi dimensional offense lead by Colin Kaepernick, I just can't see the Falcons soaring in this one.
AFC Championship Game: Patriots win 45-21
I'm doing my best to be completely unbiased with this one, so bear with me. Look, I hate predicting wins for the Pats, I think its bad luck. So if they lose this one, I take complete blame. Anyways, I believe I have some good reasons why the Patriots will win this one. Let's look first at the Patriots offense vs the Baltimore D:
The thing that the Patriots do so well, almost to perfection, is run the no huddle offense. When they get into a rhythm, they are VERY hard to beat. What the no huddle does is first off wears down the defense, secondly, since they're moving at such a quick pace the D has no time to huddle, get the right personnel out on the field and call maybe a more complicated blitz or coverage package, instead they'll just go straight up Cover 3 or Cover 2 or Man. Now this is where having Tom Brady helps. Brady can read any coverage you throw at him, and he'll sit and pick u apart all day long. The reason I bring up the no huddle offense is the fact that the Ravens have the 6th oldest defense in the NFL, averaging around 27 years old, and they just came off a came that went into double OT with Denver in the high altitude and had to play a tough game against Indy in the Wild Card round. Do you really think they're not physically, as well as emotionally tired? The amount of energy they exerted in that Denver game to stop Peyton Manning (who picked them apart for most of the game) was probably very, very taxing on them as a unit. If you look at their cornerbacks and secondary, without Ladarius Webb who's out for the year, none of those names beside Ed Reed scare me, and even then Ed Reed is 34 years old. Oh yeah, I haven't even mentioned the running game yet. The Patriots running attack this year is...awesome. That's really the only way to describe it. Between Ridley, Woodhead and Vereen, this is the best running attack that I've seen from the Patriots. They rank 7th in the league in terms of yards per game on the ground. You add this onto the passing attack with Brady, Welker, Lloyd, Hernandez, and I think it's going to be a long day for this Baltimore D.
Now let's look at the Patriots defense against the Baltimore offense, lead by Ray Rice and Joe Flacco:
I actually think this Baltimore offense is very respectable, it can't hold a candle up to the Patriots offense, but it is respectable. That being said, the Patriots defense is so improved from years past, and thank god. With the acquisition of my main man Aqib Talib, the Pats D took a HUGE step forward. We haven't had a guy like Talib who can man up and shut a receiver down, as he did with Andre Johnson last week, since Ty Law. That trade along with Devin McCourty moving to safety and the emergence of Alonzo Dennard as a legit cornerback have helped the Pats drastically this year. Not only did it help the secondary out, but the front 7 improved as well. Our line backers are probably as good a group as there is in the NFL, and our D-line lead by Wilfork makes this defense a legitimate unit, something we haven't seen around here in a while. On Baltimore's side, what they want to do is run the football with Ray Rice to set up the passing game. Flacco clearly has a big arm, as seen in Denver when he threw that miracle to Jacoby Jones in the final seconds of regulation (although that might've been the worst defensive play I've ever seen by Rahim Moore). But where the Patriots hold the advantage is in their ability to stop the run, where they rank 7th in the league. Besides a couple plays where he got big gains, we shut Arian Foster out in 2 games against the Texans. If we can shut down Ray Rice, I'll take my chances with Joe Flacco trying to beat us with his arm.
Final Thoughts: Honestly, I think the Houston Texans are a better team than the Ravens. All across the board there's just more talent than what the Baltimore Ravens have. The difference between the two teams is the leadership in the lockerroom. The Texans have Gary Kubiak, as mediocre a coach there is in the NFL and no big locker room voice. The Ravens, on the other hand, have John Harbaugh and of course Ray Lewis, the emotional leader for this team. Look, I've played football for many years, and of course watched it for longer. The thing I know is that emotion and adrenaline can only get you so far. When you come into a hostile environment like Foxboro, with a offense like the Patriots who can smack you around and get a couple scores on you in the blink of an eye. I believe the Patriots are the far supreme team, top to bottom, and the Ravens won't even know what hit them at the end of the day.
Thank you for reading this very long post and I hope you enjoyed it and learned something new along the way.
Go Pats!
-RB
PS: As you can see, I wrote a tad bit more about the Patriots game than I did the Falcons- Niners game. This is because I know a lot more about the Pats than I do any other team, and I don't really follow the NFC as closely. Sorry to disappoint.
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