he road to the Super Bowl will go through Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Glendale, Arizona; the AFC Championship will be a defensive clash between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens, while the NFC Championship is a game between two teams that no one, at the start of the season, would have ever thought would be one game away from the Super Bowl, the Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals.
The 2009 AFC Championship game is a matchup of division rivals, the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Both teams are defensive powerhouses, ranked one and two in the AFC at the conclusion of the regular season. The winner of this game will not necessarily the team that can grind out the most yards and be the most consistent offensively, the Ravens-Titans game last Saturday is a testament to that. For this reason, the team who can manage to score offensively when the team most needs it and whose defense can stop the opponent when the team most needs it, will win. In this case that will be the Baltimore Ravens.
Even though the Steelers beat the Ravens both times they met during the regular season, those matchups were decided by three and four points, once in overtime. This means that the games were tight and just about either team could have won. It was the Ravens who have proved, as of late, to be able beat a team that is extremely similar in terms of where its strengths lie by beating the Titans.
The Steelers, on the other hand, beat a Chargers team that finished the season just 8-8, and although they had won their last five games, they were all against teams that were either barely .500 or had losing records, the exception being the close game against the Colts. The Steelers even lost to the Titans by 17 not too long ago during week 16.
The Steelers have not been tested since week 15 against the Ravens, a game they barely won. The Ravens have been tested two weeks in a row against AFC East division winners the Miami Dolphins and AFC Conference winners the Titans. The Ravens soundly defeated the Dolphins and won a gritty game against the Titans, proving they can win no matter the circumstance.
The Ravens offense has been able to score when it is most needed against teams with tough defenses, as can be seen by the way Ravens rookie quarterback Joe Flacco was able to set up the game winning field goal against the Titans on an excellent 51-yard drive.
Expect a defensive battle and offensive struggle, but also expect the Ravens to come out of a tough match victorious.
The NFC Championship game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Philadelphia Eagles is a matchup between two teams that are not as evenly matched as the Ravens and Steelers, but still will represent the NFC team that is most equipped to face the Ravens or Steelers in the Super Bowl. The Eagles are the team with a much more dominant defense, ranked third in the entire NFL, compared to a Cardinals defense that ranked 19th in the entire league at the end of the regular season. However, the Arizona defense that held Carolina to just 13 points is a major step in the right direction for the Cardinals, especially considering Carolina relied heavily on its offense which was ranked 10th in the NFL and Arizona is taking on another offensively able team as Philadelphia was ranked 9th in total offense at the end of the regular season.
Both teams sport powerful offenses, Arizona ranked fourth in total offense in the entire NFL and averaged 26.7 points per game during the regular season behind veteran quarterback Kurt Warner, less than one point more than the Eagles. The Eagles offense, headed by quarterback Donovan McNabb and coach Andy Reid, has been very conisistent during the latter half of the season and during the postseason. Based on the Eagles win over NFC Conference winners the New York Giants Sunday expect the Eagles offense to be more productive than Arizona based on the defenses the two teams sport.
Although there is a chance for a repeat of the Arizona-Carolina match and an Arizona win, the Philadelphia Eagles represent the best of what is left of the NFC in this year's playoffs and expect them to win the fifth NFC Championship Reid and McNabb have been a part of together.
(Statistics gathered from NFL.com and ESPN.com)
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Author: William M. Wrigley
I am a student at Emmanuel College in Boston, I write about sports, politics, and really anything that seems interesting to me.
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