We're less than a month away from the most exciting game in sports and it features a match up that's perfect on so many levels. The San Francisco 49ers play the Baltimore Ravens. There are so many key match-ups to look at in this game:
The Quarterback Match-up - This may come as a shock to you, but Joe Flacco has more road playoff victories than any other quarterback to ever play in the NFL. Flacco has also won a playoff game in each of his seasons in the NFL. Flacco also has a powerful arm and isn't afraid to pull the trigger on the deep ball [which is extremely effective]. However, the best safety duo in the league [Donte Whitner and Dashon Goldson] may take advantage of Flacco's trigger-happy play style which may lead to some interceptions. Meanwhile, on the other side, Colin Kaepernick is a strong, mobile quarterback with TONS of raw arm talent [he threw a 70 mph ball in the regular season against New England]. The main reason why people doubt Colin is inexperience. He only started 9 games in the regular season, but that's an overrated factor that shouldn't make much of a difference. The real concern that I have with Colin is middle accuracy. His deep ball is great but, when throwing 11-20 yards past the line of scrimmage, his completion percentage is under 54% which may be a problem if the Ravens' pass rush doesn't give him enough time to throw 30 yard bombs.
Running Backs and Receivers - Both teams run somewhat of a 2-back rushing game [Ray Rice and Bernard Pierce vs Frank Gore and Lamichael James]. Rice's diversity along with the hard running style of Bernard Pierce may be too much for to overcome especially with a passing game that keeps the defense guessing. Even though the 49ers have a stout run defense, I think Baltimore will have a huge game on the ground. But, I'm not as sure about the 49ers running game. They have 2 great backs, but they tend to use Gore an awful lot and don't seem to trust James as much as I think they should.
The receiving matchup isn't as close as the others and Baltimore has a huge advantage. Michael Crabtree is a great receiver, but there's no one else there to draw attention from him. Meanwhile, Flacco has many options. Anquan Boldin is the type of receiver that annoys defenses. He keeps catching these 8-10 yard passes all game long and opens up up the deep game with [possibly a top 3 deep threat in the league] Torrey Smith and kick-return specialist / one of the league's fastest players [and best touchdown celebrators] Jacoby Jones.
Defense - Barely gonna debate this one. With the exception off possibly the pass rush, San Francisco has the clear edge in every category. Speaking of the pass-rush though, for Baltimore it's; the BEST LEADER in all of professional football [and best linebacker to ever play the game] Ray Lewis, the best interior lineman in the game, Haloti Ngata, reigning Defensive Player of the Year, Terrell Suggs, and newly emerged outside linebacker, Paul Kruger. They're up against an extremely tough 49ers pass rush consisting, the 2nd best interior lineman in the league, Justin Smith, The soon-to-be [once Lewis retires] best linebacker in the NFL, Patrick Willis, and the man who cleans it all up [and gets all the credit, even though the other guys force the quarterbacks out of the pocket] Aldon Smith.
Coaching - This one's even. The Harabaugh brothers are both equally brilliant [even though Jim gets all the credit]. But they do have different preferences. Jim [despite working with Andrew Luck in the past] likes to run a rush-heavy offense [that's why he picked Kaepernick over Smith]. But, John likes to run a pass heavy offense, often bringing his backs out of the backfield into the passing game.
Leadership - Ray Lewis. That's all I have to say about that.
FINAL PREDICTION - RAVENS, 21-17
