The Battle at Gillette

Max Miceli   

   Today at 3 o'clock Gillette will be the home of the AFC championship game. This year the Ravens hope to make it to the Super Bowl for their first time since they own the Vince Lombardi Trophy at the beginning of the last decade. 

   The Ravens will have to be on their game if they want to beat the Patriots high powered offense on the road. If the Ravens want to win, Ray Rice has to show up. last week Rice touched the ball 25 times with 4 of those touches being receptions. This only got Rice 80 all purpose yards on the day. Numbers like those won't be good enough for the Ravens to win today. Baltimore needs to give Rice the ball about ten times more and Rice needs to do a lot more with the all when he gets it. 

   This probably won't be too difficult for the Raven offense considering the Patriots defense is nothing close to as good as the Texan D they faced last week. 

   Look for Ray to get a lot of touches to help open the passing attack for Joe Flacco against a very weak New England secondary. 

   For the Pats offensively, they will do what they always do. They will hand the ball to Tom Brady and say "go get 'em". 

   Tom will definitely get 'em.

   While earlier in the season, a lot of attention was given to Drew Brees for breaking Dan Marino's passing record for yards in a season, many people missed the Brady surpassed the mark as well with 5,235 yards. 

   Almost half of those yards went to either Wes Welker or Rob Gronkowski, and you shouldn't expect anything less from the Patriots this game. The Pats will put up points. it's going to be up the Ravens to keep up with them, and make key defensive stops when it matters. 

   If the Ravens D can at the very least somewhat contain Welker and Gronk, they have a chance. The key to keeping the receivers in check however is going to be taking shots at their QB. If Baltimore can put pressure on the Ugg wearing model marrying pretty boy quarterback of the Patriots, they can and hopefully will win. 

   I know the Ravens aren't very good on the road, but I picked them to make it all the way at the beginning of the playoffs. (and I'm not backing down now!)

   I think it's a very tight game, but I see the Ravens going to Indy to play in the Super Bowl (*cough cough* against the 49ers *cough cough*). 

RAVENS       31

PATRIOTS    28