NFL Conference Championship Games Preview’s and Predictions

Well, we are at the sec­ond to last Sun­day of the NFL sea­son, Cham­pi­onship Sun­day. It is both a sad and excit­ing time, sad because after Sun­day there is only one game left in the NFL until Sep­tem­ber, excit­ing because, well, it’s Cham­pi­onship Sun­day, the Final Four of the NFL. So, let’s get down to the picks.

#2 Bal­ti­more Ravens @ #1 New Eng­land Patri­ots (-7 ½) (Sun­day / 3:00 p.m. / CBS)

Clas­sic bat­tle of offense ver­sus defense, can New Eng­land score on Baltimore’s defense or can Baltimore’s offense keep up with New England’s offense. This game on paper looks exactly like the Saints and 49ers game from last week­end where the Saints were able to score on the 49ers vaunted defense, but their weak defense allowed the 49ers mediocre offense to drive down the field all day long and even­tu­ally pull out in the end. Just like in that game also tight ends will play a major role in this game as well. The dif­fer­ence in this game is that both star tight ends play for the Patri­ots. The Ravens will be tasked with hav­ing to really get pres­sure on Tom Brady from their front three and will not be able to do much blitz­ing because they will need their line­back­ers to play in cov­er­age all day long. Ter­rell Suggs plays line­backer but likes to play on the line a lot as a defen­sive end and blitz, but I really think if they are to win they will need him cov­er­ing one of the tight ends and Ray Lewis on the other. On offense they need to run the ball with Ray Rice early and often so they can set up the Patri­ots weak sec­ondary for big play action passes. The Ravens have a ton of speed with Tor­rey Smith and Lee Evans on the out­side and the big play should be open. At this time of the year I really like to go with defense and run­ning and the Ravens are supe­rior at both. I do not feel very con­fi­dent in putting my faith in Joe Flacco over Tom Brady, but I do have a ton of faith in that Ravens defense and I think they will be the dif­fer­ence on Sun­day. Ravens win outright.

Ravens 27   Patri­ots 24

#4 New York Giants @ #2 San Fran­cisco 49ers (-2 ½) (Sun­day / 6:30 p.m. /FOX)

It’s funny how spreads work. The rule of thumb is home team gets three points, so last week at home the 49ers were essen­tially a 6 ½ point under­dog to the Saints, one week later against the Giants who just went into Lam­beau Field and took apart the 15–1 defend­ing Super Bowl Cham­pion Pack­ers, they are giv­ing 2 ½ points, which in real­ity says it is an even match-up. I know the 49ers are at home, but come on, is there a hot­ter team in the NFL than the New York Giants? If there is I haven’t seen them. There is no ques­tion the Giants have a bet­ter defense than the Saints, the Saints have to blitz five guys to get pres­sure on the quar­ter­back, the Giants sim­ply get mas­sive pres­sure just from their front four, which means the mid­dle of the field will not be wide open for Ver­non Davis like it was all last week­end. On offense Eli Man­ning is in a zone, he is nearly per­fect on third downs and in the fourth quar­ter, and the Giants, while not as deep at receiver as the Saints, are more tal­ented than the Saints with their top three guys and they also have a pretty good tight end. The run­ning game has finally come around as Jacobs and Brad­shaw are really healthy at the same time for the first time all year long. While it may sound like I think this game is going to be a cake walk for the Giants, I don’t. The 49ers have a strong defense and run­ning game, I just don’t see Alex Smith hav­ing the same kind of game he had last week, sim­ply because I don’t think he will have as much time in the pocket or a wide open Ver­non Davis. I think the game will be close, but I am tak­ing the Giants to win it.

Giants 24   49ers 21

Well, those are my picks, I was 2–2 last week ver­sus the spread, mak­ing me 5–3 over­all for the play­offs. Enjoy the week­end, only one left after Sunday.