Avenger
Rotational Player and Threatening Starter's Job
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2012
- Messages
- 1,498
- Reaction score
- 73
AFC Championship Game rematch, this is a game that could decide playoff seeding. The last time the Ravens lost back-to-back was in '09, the last time the Pats have been below .500 was in '03. The Ravens have never made the playoffs starting 1-2. Suggs and possibly Pollard are out for the Ravens, Hernandez is out for the Pats, although NE did sign Kellen Winslow II as a fill in, and have brought back former Super Bowl MVP WR Deion Branch. Since John Harbaugh took over the Ravens in 2008, New England is 49-17, Baltimore 45-21. The teams are tied for the best home records in the NFL with marks of 28-5. (In the regular season and postseason, the Ravens have won 20 of their last 21 at home; before Sunday's loss to Arizona, the Patriots were 35-1 in their last 36 regular season home games.) Head to head, the Patriots are 6-0 all time against the Ravens in the regular season, and have not lost a game in Baltimore since Oct. 9th, 1983 against the then Baltimore Colts. In the last four meetings, all of which were played since Harbaugh has taken over in Baltimore, the Patriots have won three, all coming down to the last play. The one exception was when Welker was out injured in the Wildcard round, where Brady threw 3 interceptions with a QB rating of 49.1. Brady's rating easily outdistanced Flacco, who went 4 of 10 for 34 yards and a 10.0 rating - but the Ravens ran for 234 yards, including an 83-yard touchdown run by Ray Rice on the first play of the game. If you want to extend the sample to a fifth game, pre-Harbaugh, that came in Week 13 of the 2007 season, when the Pats posted a 27-24 victory at Baltimore. Add it all up and you have five games with a total score of New England 114, Baltimore 108, essentially one possession over 5 games.
