Sunday’s AFC Championship game sees Tom Brady and the New England Patriots come up against the hard-hitting Baltimore Ravens at Foxborough.
Betfred Outright Match Odds: Baltimore 5/2, New England 3/10 (Overtime Counts)
The Patriots offence can put up points for fun, through the last nine games they’ve only been held to under thirty points once, and they still won that game. The obvious target is Rob Gronkowski, who has been uncoverable this season, the big man has broke numerous records this year and will be full of confidence after this three touchdown performance last weekend.
With the threat Gronkowski poses, it should open things up for the likes of Wes Welker, Aaron Hernandez and Deion Branch – Welker is likely to be covered by Chris Carr and that’s a match up I like, whilst Hernandez should have some joy against rookie corner Jimmy Smith.
A decent run game is something New England has been missing for a long time, at the moment they seem to be running a committee of Stevan Ridley, Benjarvis Green-Ellis and Danny Woodhead. I’d quite like to see the Patriots run a couple of split-back plays with Ridley and Woodhead in the backfield, and Gronkowski, Hernandez & Welker lining up. This should keep the Ravens’ defence guessing as there’s numerous screens to run to counter their pass rush, as well as the added pass protection for Brady if he drops back to pass.
On the defensive side for New England it’s quite hard to find many positives, but they may have a decent match up against the Baltimore offence. Although the Patriots have been giving up over 400 yards per game, most of that has been through the air, and I’m not so sure they’ll be too worried about Joe Flacco – he completed just 57% of passes during the regular season, only managing 20 touchdowns, and quite an amazing stat is he failed to throw a touchdown pass in four of those games!
Although the Patriots D gives up a lot of yardage, they haven’t given up that many points (21 per game) and sit third in the takeaway table with 23 picks and 11 fumble recoveries. That means there could be quite a bit of pressure on Ray Rice to perform, he’s had a career year on most fronts and I think he’ll get close to 120 yards providing the Ravens aren’t playing catch up.
It’s not very often the Ravens are playing catch-up thanks to their outstanding defence – they recorded 48 sacks through the regular season, led the league in forced fumbles and were second on passes defended – some stats that will worry Tom Brady. With Haloti Ngata plugging the middle, a key player will be Terrell Suggs and his ability to get pressure on Brady from the edge, if he can get to Brady, the Ravens may have a chance.
I really can’t see anything other than a New England win here despite being sweet on the Ravens earlier in the season.
Recommended Bets
10/11 New England -7 (Handicap)
8/1 Aaron Hernandez (First Touchdown Scorer)
20/21 New England -4.5 (First Half Handicap)
5/1 Patriots to win by 13-18 (Winning Margin)
