the championship games

sports:  After a lack luster week of wild card playoff games, there were high hopes for the NFL divisional playoff round.  And it certainly delivered.
The Saturday games were nothing short of breathtaking as Baltimore beat Denver on the road in a game that went into its sixth quarter.  The two teams matched each other point for point the entire game.  Ultimately though it was a few fatal mistakes from the Broncos that made the difference in the game.  The first came when Raheem Moore let Jacoby Jones get behind him on a play with only a few about forty seconds left in the fourth quarter when only a deep pass could push the game to overtime and prevent the Broncos from losing.  The next mistake came on the ensuing drive when Denver opted to take a knee and go to overtime with thirty seconds left and two timeouts.  I'm not saying that the Broncos would have won the game inevitably, but basic intuition says it would have been worth it to run at least a play or two and see if you could begin to drive the ball towards field goal position.  The final mistake came when Peyton Manning through a bad pass running right across his body for an interception.  Unfortuantely that pass is probably what will be most remembered since it lead to the game winning field goal, but it was one in a series of mistakes that lead to the loss.
In the other game in the AFC the Patriots took care of business with a convincing win over the Houston Texans.  Despite their dominance throughout the game and one of the all time great passes on deep route from Brady to Shane Vareen, New England lost two of their key offensive weapons in the game.  Rob Gronkowski and Julian Eddleman are now out.
So who wins this match-up?  The Ravens appear to have that team of destiny feel feeding off the inspiration of knowing that Ray Lewis is going to retire.  They are also playing to their strengths.  The defense has been good but not great and oppertunistic.  The offense has been as good as we've seen all year using the effective deep passing of Joe Flacco and the running/screen passing game with Ray Rice.  The fact that these are the Ravens strengths this season is no mystery, the fact that they have not used them consistantly this season (particularly on offense), is.  Conventional wisdom says that if the Ravens stick to this game plan against the Patriots they should be fine.  The Patriots, however, are not the same team that Baltimore beat earlier in the season.  The Pats' defense has improved over the course of the season, especially in the passing game since the acquisition of Aquib Talib.  That game back in week three was also heavily influenced by the replacement refs and a bizarre game winning field goal that involved the discussion of never ending goal posts.  In the end the Patriots win thanks to their improved defense and the lack of terrible officiating while playing at home.  And despite their losses on offense due to injury, this is a team that has historically adjusted well to that under Belichek by being able to plug well prepared, game ready players into their system.
The NFC championship match-up comes with a lot of the same prefacing.  The Atlanta Falcons won a tight game in the final thirty seconds thanks in large part to some horrible coverage by the Seattle defense.  The Niners on the other hand won their game against the Packers in stunning fashion, behind an historic night from quarterback Colin Kapernick, in pretty dominant fashion.  This game also comes with a few more if ands and buts attatched to it.  San Fransisco is heavily favored this week based largely on their performance against the Green Bay.  They certainly are not an easy out given the second ranked defense they bring into the game along with the ever evolving offense lead by Kapernick.  But without that game by Kapernick (280+  passing yards and 180+ rushing yards), the game would be viewed as a closer match-up.  And Kapernick is sure to regress at least a little bit.  Atlanta still seems to be the same team we thought they were (shout out to Denny Green) before their win against the Seahawks.  They had a big lead, gave up a big lead, and one with a great game winning drive at the end, still not looking dominant.  The talk after the game despite having lost was still about how awesome Seattle was.  Having got the monkey off their back of winning a playoff game, I don't know if Atlanta is still the "nobody believes in us team."  They also have match-up issues with the Niners.  San Fransisco's one weakness on defense is slot receivers.  That would put the success of the team on Harry Douglas's shoulders.  While he is a serviceable reciever, Wes Welker he is not.  The Falcons should also have a hard time uinning on San Fran the way they did on Seattle.  They have also allowed lots of yards against teams who run the read option like Carolina and the Seattle team they played last week.  What this game will probably ulitmately come down to is whether the Falcons offensive line can give Matt Ryan enough time to let plays develop down field for Roddy White and Julio Jones.  If that doesn't happen, the Falcons have next to no shot.  I said in week one after the Niners beat Green Bay that they were the best team in football, and despite some of their ups and downs I think I stand by that fact.  Despite that, the Falcons home field advantage, which is almost as good as Seattle's and that late game cool from Matt Ryan comes through.  Atlanta finally makes the adjustments to the read-option and finds a way to contain San Fransisco's offense.  A few big plays from Jones and White later and the other Matt Ice, Matt Bryant, is kicking another game winning field goal.  The Falcons go to the Super Bowl setting up another game between the Patriots and a "nobody believes in us" team.