There is a report out that the reigning defensive player of the year, Terrell Suggs, has torn his Achilles tendon. An injury of that magnitude would likely force him to miss the entirety of the season.
Today was the beginning of voluntary workouts in the NFL. Most of the news revolved around who wasn’t participating — Drew Brees, Wes Welker, Matt Forte, Ray Rice etc… However, for last year’s crop of rookies this is the first time they get this sort of pre season activity, last year they were locked out.
The last time we saw the Baltimore Ravens, they were choking away the AFC championship game with a Lee Evans TD drop and a missed field goal chip shot. Still haven’t gotten over that one. Today, Baltimore’s coach, John Harbaugh, addressed the players who came to take part in activities.
“Here’s a reality of this league, you never pick up where you left off the season before. We’re never back to a minute left in the AFC championship game ready to take it to the Super Bowl. We’re not there until we earn our way back there again. Every team starts over, and the foundation for us starts right now. We build the whole thing from scratch.
“My point is this is the beginning. That game, that loss, was tough. We all still feel it inside. Will we ever get over the sting and disappointment? Our way of moving forward is to have the best offseason and the best training camp of any team in the NFL. Then, when we start the season, we will be the most prepared team in the league. We’ll go to work and do the things we have to do. We’ll see how good we can be today and then tomorrow and then the next day.”
I’m not picky, I’ll take whatever football news I can get. This is just the first step towards the new season. Tomorrow the schedule will be announced (7:00pm EST) and next week is the draft.
A photo of Tom Brady’s arm from the AFC Championship game against the Baltimore Ravens.
Knees flexed — DOWN, DOWN!
NO TURNOVERS
Find 20 ON EVERY PLAY
Winners and Losers…Conference Championship Edition
Each week throughout the playoffs, we’ll be recapping winners and losers from the week’s action. Let’s get right into it:
Winners
Tom Brady: Hard to keep throwing superlatives at this guy’s incredible career. Might have to resort to complimenting his hair and post pictures of Gisele soon. But he’ll be playing in his 5th Super Bowl and just tied Joe Montana with his 16th playoff victory today.
Joe Philbin: The former Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator interviewed with the Miami Dolphins on January 7th. The next day, tragedy hit when his 21 year old son was found dead in a tragic accident. Philbin stayed with the team and watched over the Packers offense as they lost to the Giants at home. This past weekend, he was announced as the new head coach of the Dolphins. With his five kids and his wife, I hope that this can be a fresh start for Philbin. Maybe it’s as simple as getting away from where the incident occurred, to start moving on. Without sports, we wouldn’t know about a tragedy like this. And with sports, it will help Philbin and his family move forward.
Joe Flacco: 22 for 36. 239 yards. No touchdowns. 2 interceptions. 59.7 quarterback rating. Sounds like a familiar Flacco day. Wait!!! That’s Brady’s line! Flacco finished with the same completions and attempts, but for 306 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 interception, and after a shaky first quarter, was in total control of the offense and found his receivers deep all day. On the final drive, he put the team in a position to win (a perfect throw on the Lee Evans drop) or even tie (you know what happened here). At the start of the day, I was calling him Joe Sanchez. At the end of the day, I’m mildly intrigued by Joe Flacco as the most enigmatic quarterback next season.
Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin: He’s no longer Peyton Manning’s little brother! Actually, he hasn’t been his little brother for a long time. On his way to a second Super Bowl, a superb game against the 49ers. The debate for the best Manning quarterback is very much up in the air. As for Coughlin, every year the team is suppose to quit on him. And yet, here’s his second Super Bowl appearance with the Giants. Let the resume speak for itself, everything else is just noise.
Hakeem Nicks and Victor Cruz: The best receiving tandem in the league. Any arguments?
Ben-Jarvus Green-Ellis: A solid day on the ground, and a great tribute to the late Myra Kraft after his touchdown.
Jimmy Smith and Bernard Pollard: With an incredibly choreographed interception, from Pollard’s tip to Smith keeping the ball in bound. Appreciate the beauty by re-watching it a million times here.
Josh McDaniels: Congratulations you’re going to the Super Bowl!!! How did this happen.
Vernon Davis: 2 more touchdowns today. Over 100 yards receiving. These playoffs were a huge coming out party for the tight end.
Vince Wilfork: Best fat man performance this week next to Eddy Curry’s reappearance.
Losers
Billy Cundiff: Here’s his Facebook page. I’ve been refreshing it for two hours.
Kyle Williams: Should probably come in before everyone tomorrow to clean out your locker. To avoid all the awkward handshakes and goodbyes.
Lee Evans: You have to catch that ball. Somehow Buffalo figures into a tragic finish again.
The Harbaugh brothers: Great seasons from both of their teams, but short of the Super Bowl.
Indianapolis fans: Get ready to see either Tom Brady win a championship in your backyard, or Peyton Manning’s little brother furthering the argument as the better quarterback with his second Super Bowl win.
Steven Tyler: Why don’t passionate football fans like us get a chance to sit next to Robert Kraft at a conference championship game. He leads the losers for his national anthem performance.
Ochocinco: Inactive. And couldn’t even tweet cause Twitter was over capacity for half the day. Just a terrible day over all for Chad.
Baltimore defense: Played a great game today, allowed multiple drives into the red zone but they adhered to the bending but not breaking mentality. Everyone comes back a year older next year, this might’ve been their last chance as a core group to add a second Super Bowl to their resume.
“Is this my last game as a Raven? Absolutely not. Let me answer that question before somebody asks it.”
- Ray Lewis
(Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)
It’s halftime at Foxboro and the Patriots are up 13-10 on the Ravens.
Surprisingly, the key to today’s game has been New England’s ground attack and Flacco’s passing.
How does it end!?
(Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
AFC Championship Preview: Ravens at Patriots
@steven_lebron - Baltimore Ravens
Before we get into the preview, Ravens fans already have a consolation in case they lose: Mark Wahlberg called into a Boston radio station and promised if the Pats win 42-20, he will lick the bottom of the radio announcer’s feet next time he’s in town. So there’s that.
Onto the game.
When the Ravens won the Super Bowl in 2000, they had a dominating defense that required Trent Dilfer to be the most demeaning term you can throw at a quarterback: game manager.
The 2000 Ravens finished 12-4, allowed 10.3 points a game and had a +168 point differential and were +23 in takeaways. In their four playoff games, the defense allowed a total of 23 points. With those type of stats, they needed Trent Dilfer to complete the following number of passes in each playoff win: 9, 5, 9, 12. He threw three touchdowns in the post-season against one interception. Managing the game one mediocre performance at a time.
The 2011 Ravens finished 12-4, allowed 16.6 points a game and had a +112 point different and were +2 in takeaways. Against the Patriots, they’re going to need Joe Flacco to be more than a mediocre quarterback.
The prevailing belief is that the Patriots will pack the box to stop Ray Rice and let Flacco dictate what the Ravens offense can do down the field. For the regular season, Flacco was a 57.6% passer, with a 80.9 quarterback rating. Those type of stats will not get it done against a Patriots team that will more than likely put up points against the Ravens defense.
Here’s a checklist of how the Ravens can get it done: Ray Rice has to get 120 yards from scrimmage, the defense has to force at least two turnovers, and Flacco will have to get at least a few balls down the field.
The aura of the Patriots in the post-season has been stained in recent years, with their AFC Championship Game loss at Indianapolis and back to back home playoff losses to the Ravens and Jets.
The Ravens will have to play a perfect game to win. The pieces are there to make it happen.
w.W - New England Patriots
I was really tempted to simply write, “Tom Brady & Bill Belichick can not be denied.”, and leave it at that. This would have been the easy way out and nothing is easy when facing the Baltimore Ravens. That said, it’s as though the Patriots are a machine.
They are led by an all-time great QB & an all-time great Head Coach, those are facts, and this New England club is the type of NFL team that seemingly can only stop themselves.
Sure, the defense has holes. The depth in the secondary is such that players named Edelman and Slater —neither was drafted to ever be on the field with the defense on first, second, or third down— have been asked to pitch in at crucial moments during critical games. Yet here they are. The AFC Championship Game once again.
The team is healthy, rolling, and well prepared for the challenge ahead. There’s good talent on defense at enough key positions to frustrate the Ravens offense. The Pats are an efficient team on special teams, too. That facet of the game was a Ravens weakness in their four road losses this season.
Then, THEN, there is the offense. A running game that gets the yards it needs from multiple options. A tight end led the team last week & was very effective. Really? The passing game: Study it. Brady to Gronk. Brady to Welker. Brady to Hernandez. Brady to Branch. Brady to some guy who not a single “expert” mentioned all week. Rinse and repeat. New England is on a mission & it would take a perfect game by this current version of the Baltimore Ravens to derail them. I don’t see it happening.
The Patriots will not be denied.
![“The Ravens, they’re the best team we’ve played all year. They present a ton of challegnes in all three phases of the game. When you watch them, like you watched them yesterday, they’re physical, they’re tough, they can cover, they have some of the best players in the history of the NFL at their positions like [Terrell] Suggs, Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Haloti Ngata. We really got our work cut out for us.”
- Tom Brady](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxwmp9KQuG1qd6kw4o1_1280.jpg)
“The Ravens, they’re the best team we’ve played all year. They present a ton of challegnes in all three phases of the game. When you watch them, like you watched them yesterday, they’re physical, they’re tough, they can cover, they have some of the best players in the history of the NFL at their positions like [Terrell] Suggs, Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Haloti Ngata. We really got our work cut out for us.”
Winners and Losers…Divisional Round Edition
Each week throughout the playoffs, we’ll be recapping winners and losers from the week’s action. Let’s get right into it:
Winners
Tim Tebow: Wait, we’re going to start this write-up by calling the quarterback who got embarrassed 45-10 on the road this weekend a winner? Yes. Yes, we are. Tim Tebow made sense out of everything that wasn’t supposed to make sense this year. He was a cultural phenomenon, helped revive the city of Denver and brought them back to the playoffs, and most of all: made it possible for us to all doubt whether we know anything about the sport we love to watch. I’ve always valued the unpredictability and ebbs and flows of sports. We all like to pretend to think we know more than we do. It’s why we make predictions, use statistics to form our analysis and all of that. But Tebow ran counter to all of that, and whether it means he is an overrated quarterback, an underrated runner, or just a player with a unique set of skills at his position: I think we can all look back and appreciate the breath of fresh air he represented for the game of football. That’s my main takeaway from his entire narrative, and that’s why he’s a winner.
Tom Brady: 6 touchdowns against the Broncos. 3 Super Bowl rings. Married to Gisele. Y’all must’ve forgot.
Alex Smith, the 49ers defense, Jim Harbaugh and the entire city of San Francisco: I love to talk about teams and players having relevant moments. The Houston Texans were the classic example. Until they beat the Bengals last week, their franchise were not relevant. Same for Alex Smith. The former number one pick wasn’t given much credit for the Niners’ success this season. You win in spite of Alex Smith, not because of him. If I told you the Saints would score over 30 points yesterday, you would’ve assumed a blowout for Dree Brees and company. But instead, the 49ers defense set the tone early on, and when the game evolved into a shootout in the fourth quarter, Alex Smith led two late-game drives and earned himself relevancy amongst NFL quarterbacks. I still can’t believe I just wrote that.
Eli Manning: Two post-season wins in Lambeau Field. Marinate on that for a minute, or a whole week.
Anyone who owns a Best Buy franchise in Green Bay: Read this, going to be lots of gift cards tomorrow.
Brett Favre: Free drinks on him tonight, where ever he is.
Arian Foster: Here to stay.
Ed Reed: Legend.
Bill Belichick’s hoodie: I hope the NFL institutes a dress code for coaches, just to see if Belichick would dare to cut the sleeves of his suit and wear it with a long sleeve shirt underneath just because.
Hakeem Nicks: Or as he prefers to be called, “New York”.
Losers
Zoltan Mesko:The New England Patriots punter’s job is pretty redundant enough because of Brady’s offensive efficiency. It won’t be good for job security this week when he looks at the punting stats against the Broncos. Mesko: 2 punts, 39 yards average. Brady: 1 punt, 48 yard average. Expect minimal conversation between these two at practice this week.
The referees in the Giants-Packers game: Did not overturn an obvious fumble by the Packers, and a strange roughing the passer on the Giants in the fourth quarter that kept the game alive. Luckily, the result makes all their mistakes moot. But a concern going forward.
Dome teams on the road: I’m not sure what the stats are, but after the Falcons loss to the Giants last week, and the record setting Saints offense falling at San Francisco, it’s not going to help quell the perception that dome teams are at a significant disadvantage when playing with outdoor elements in January. By the way, New Orleans has still never won a road playoff game.
Green Bay receivers: Out of sync all day.
Philadelphia Eagles and New York Jets: just because you were both supposed to be playing this week.
Jacoby Jones: That fumble on the punt return in the first quarter ended up being pretty important didn’t it.
The fans: Just three more football games left (I made the executive decision to not include the Pro Bowl as a legitimate football game) until the off-season.
