NFL Picks – AFC Wildcard – Baltimore Ravens @ New England Patriots [Sunday @ 1:00]

TheCoach | Jan 06, 2010 | Comments 2

Baltimore Ravens (9-7) @ New England Patriots (10-6)

LINE: New England -2.5

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When these teams met in week 4, the Ravens could have won the game but dropped a pass (much like in the game against the Steelers two weeks ago) and lost 27-21 in the final moments of the game. At that point in the season, Tom Brady was starting to get his jive back after not playing last season and had the best possession receiver, Wes Welker as a weapon to take double teams constantly off of Randy Moss. With Welker getting injured last week and now done for the year, and Brady rumoured to have broken ribs, can the Patriots repeat their week 4 performance or will the Ravens capitalize on the Wes Welker-less Pats and punish Brady with the blitz?

Baltimore: Ray Rice, get ready because you MUST have a big game to put young Joe Flacco in favourable siutations and TheCoach’s take is Rice will have a big day. The Patriots are brutal against the run and have surrendered 90+ to all opponents this year except the Falcons in week three and on average are giving up 110.5 yards per game (10th in the league). When these teams met in week 4, Ray Rice and Willis McGahee ripped off 116 yards on 6.8 yards per cary. Give them the ball for a few more carries and the Ravens offence may never leave the field. A lot of people have turned their back on Joe Flacco and are saying he has no chance of going into Foxboro on Sunday afternoon and pulling off the upset. Yeah, the Patriots are 8-0 at home, but have hosted Buffalo, Atlanta, Baltimore, Miami, New York (Jets), Carolina and Jacksonville and travelled to London, England for their “home game” that they won against Tennessee. Out of all those teams, Baltimore is the only team in the playoffs and could have easily beat New England (and Pittsburgh) if Michael Clayton (and Derrick Mason) could catch the ball. Flacco started the season off hot before slumping and that is when most people lost faith in him. Most people didn’t consider he was injured. In his last four games that he’s been healthy and people haven’t been paying attention to him, he has went 58-of-93 for 796 yards, seven touchdowns (eight if Mason catches the ball), and one interception, while completing 62.4% of his passes and 8.6 yards per attempt. Pretty gat-damn good if you ask TheCoach. New England problem all year has been their defence and their pass defence is worse than their rush defence so with Ray Rice’s help, Flacco shouldn’t struggle the slightest bit.

New England: For all you people cursing the Colts for resting their starters and giving up their perfect season, how do you think New England fans feel? The Patriots had a playoff spot and the division locked up

Without Welker, the Pats need the Randy "two-headed beast" Moss to show up

and decided to play Wes Welker who tore his MCL/ACL and is done for the year. After this happened, Belichick decided to play Brady for almost the entire game until they were losing in the 4th quarter, even with rumours swirling Brady has busted ribs. The loss of Welker is huge. Everyone and there gat-damn dog should know this. People are saying Julian Edelman will be able to fill Welker’s shoes but TheCoach isn’t so confident in Edelman. Yes, he is a good possession receiver but he is not Wes Welker nor does he has the rapport that Brady and Welker have. If you watch the Patriots play in the last two minutes of either-half, you’ll see “Brady to Welker, Brady to Welker, Brady to Welker” and the reason for this is because Welker knows where to be and what to do and Brady knows what Welker will do. Yeah, Edelman can catch 9-10 balls for 90 yards but he doesn’t have the same leadership qualities or the blocking ability of Welker nor will he be able to be the difference when the game is on the line. In the two games Welker missed this season, Brady had some of his worst completions percentages (average of 54.5%) and the Patriots struggled to put up points or move the chains consistently. They only scored nine points on the Jets and 26 on the Falcons but scored most of the 26 late in the game. With no run game to speak of (Baltimore hasn’t allowed 4.1 yards per carry since October 18th), no Wes Welker for Brady to rely on, the ability to double-team Randy Moss more often with the added fact you can be blitz happy and put Brady and his broken ribs on his back-side… I have trouble believing in New England.

In summary, no one seems to have any respect for Joey Flacco during his slump but he played through injuries and since getting healthy has looked fabulous. The loss of Wes Welker will put more of a kink in New England’s chain than people are thinking it will and the bottom line is Brady can’t rely on Edelman like he did on Welker. The atmosphere in Cincinnati will be crazy since they rarely host a playoff game, the 100,000+ in Dallas will be going NUTS, so Mark Sanchez and Donovan McNabb may struggle a bit… but it won’t be just because of the home-field advantage… it will be in large part to the Bengals and Cowboys have top-ranked defences. Something New England does not.

TheCoachs Picks:
Baltimore 27 New England 21