We've arrived at one of the best days in all of sports: Conference Championship Sunday. Come 10:00 tomorrow night, we'll know the two participants in Super Bowl XLVI. It's a very interesting mix of teams remaining. The Giants are the best team in the NFL right now, the Ravens have been the best team in the AFC all season, the Patriots have been the Patriots, and the 49ers showed last week that they can't be overlooked. So much for that Packers-Saints rematch for the NFC title. Even when we get to the conference championship games, there's still usually one team remaining that has little to no chance to actually win the Super Bowl. That's not the case this year, I can see any of the four potential matchups happening, and I can see all four teams winning it all.
Ravens (13-4) at Patriots (14-3): Baltimore-This is the matchup I was hoping to see in the AFC. Now we get to see what the Patriots are made of. Thanks to the Ravens not showing up for that Monday night game in Jacksonville, New England ended up with home field advantage, which puts this game in Foxboro. I'm not sure how much of a factor that'll play, though. The Ravens know how to play in cold weather and they can run the ball. And playing in Foxboro certainly isn't going to scare them. They beat the Patriots there in the divisional playoffs two years ago. Besides, (with the exception of last week) the Ravens are always on the road in the playoffs, so that won't phase them at all.
Last week against the Texans, it looked like the Ravens would win going away. They led 17-3 after the first quarter. But Houston came back and manged to make it a game before the Baltimore defense took care of things. New England's offense is much better than Houston's. I'm not saying that the Ravens defense needs to shut them down entirely. But they do need to slow them down enough to give the offense a chance to do something. Ray Rice is a supreme talent. The Patriots know that as much as anybody. That's why Joe Flacco will be an important player in this game. If New England tries to stop the run (which I think they will), Flacco needs to air it out and take advantage of that shaky Patriots secondary. The Ravens offense doesn't need to win the game. All they need to do is be on the field long enough to keep Tom Brady off it, and maybe getting a touchdown here or there.
The Patriots are smart enough to know that they're not going to score at will against a real defense like they did last week against the Tebows. Everybody knows that Brady's going to look for Gronkowski and Welker. I wouldn't be surprised to see Baltimore to take both of them out of the game and make New England run the ball. If Brady's going to get the ball downfield in the air, the offensive line is going to need to give him a massive amount of protection. Baltimore's pass rush and secondary are too good. They'll get to Brady eventually, and he's not going to be able to go deep. I wouldn't be surprised if the Ravens let Gronkowski do what he's going to do while working on everybody else. They'll let them run all over the middle of the field all day. They need to keep them out of the end zone.
So, who do I like? New England's 13-3 record was deceiving. The Patriots played a grand total of two teams that finished with a winning record, and they lost both of those games! Sure, they went 2-0 against the 8-8 Jets and against the 8-8 Tebows, but they haven't been tested against a team that's actually good since they lost to the Giants in November. The Ravens, on the other hand, might've had some bad losses (Jacksonville, Seattle), but they also beat the Steelers twice, the Bengals twice, the Texans twice (including last week) and the 49ers. Baltimore's proven all year that it's a better team than New England. They'll prove it again on Sunday and get a trip to Indianapolis as their reward.
Giants (11-7) at 49ers (14-3): Giants-Will people finally get off Alex Smith's back now? San Francisco's quarterback certainly proved a lot in that great game against the Saints last week. Most importantly, he beat New Orleans exactly the same way the Saints beat everybody else. The 49ers' defense wasn't the impenetrable fortress it usually was, and they still won the game! Meanwhile, is any team playing better football than the Giants right now? They went into Green Bay and completely dominated a Packers team that had been all but anoninted Super Bowl champs. So, instead of Packers-Saints, we've got a throwback. It's the Giants and 49ers for the NFC Championship.
Alex Smith will never be confused with Joe Montana or Steve Young, but he's gotten San Francisco back to the game that was commonplace when those two Hall of Famers were quarterbacking the 49ers in the '80s and early '90s. I'm not an idiot. I know the defense deserves most of the credit for the 49ers' impressive season, but it was Smith who engineered that game-winning drive last week, and his teammates certainly have the confidence in him. But the 49ers need to make sure that the offensive line keeps him from getting flattened the way Montana got flattened by Leonard Marshall 21 years ago. It's supposed to rain throughout the game, which means the 49ers could serve up even more Frank Gore than they usually do. The Giants' defense is full of talented pass rushers. Stopping Gore will be one of the keys to winning. San Francisco's passing game isn't good enough to be the sole provider of offense. Not against the Giants defense, anyway.
With the ridiculous numbers put up by Pro Bowl teammates Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees this season, Eli Manning's 2011 got a little lost in the shuffle. Well, he's the only one of the three still playing. And now he's got a chance to reach as many Super Bowls as his brother. Eli's got plenty of weapons at his disposal, but the key will be the running game, just like it was last week. Who knows what the field at Candlestick will be like if it rains the entire game like it's supposed to? Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs need to establish themselves early so that Victor Cruz and Hakeem Nicks can still be effective. If the Giants can't run the ball, the 49ers can just load up the pass rush, and Eli wants to see Justin Smith in the backfiled about as much as Alex Smith (is it some sort of rule that everybody on the 49ers is named Smith?) wants to see JPP or Osi Umenyoria. This San Francisco defense is much better than Green Bay's defense. Eli needs to chip away and keep them on the field so that they get tired out rather than going for the home run play.
The game's in San Francisco, which will help the Niners keep it close. But the Giants are playing at another level right now. In 2007, a regular season home loss to the undefeated Patriots gave them the confidence that they rode to a Super Bowl title. This year's script is so remarkably similar it's scary. The confidence-building home loss to an undefeated team was against the Packers. They faced the Packers again in the playoffs, and this time they won. Sound familiar? Look out 49ers. There's nothing stopping this Giants train until it pulls into Indianapolis.
Last Week: 4-0
Playoffs: 7-1
Overall: 174-90
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