NFL Playoffs Betting - Baltimore Ravens and New England Patriots Preview
One year ago, the AFC Championship Game came down to the last play. The Baltimore Ravens were at the New England Patriots end of the field with time winding down. The score was New England 23 Baltimore 20. Lee Evans was in the end zone and Joe Flacco got the ball into his hands. The Super Bowl was literally in Baltimore's grasp. But back-up cornerback Sterling Moore stripped it out of Evans' hands at the last instant.
So Billy Cundiff came on to kick a 32-yard field goal to send the game into overtime. Would the Ravens win in overtime? Or would Brady come through in the clutch? We would never find out. Cundiff missed the 32 yarder to send John Harbaugh's Ravens home, coming just short of the Big Game. Later that day his brother, Jim Habaugh's San Francisco 49ers would lose the NFC Championship Game in overtime to the New York Giants when his punt returner muffed it away.
On Sunday, both of the Harbaugh boys have their teams back, one game away from the Big Game. John has his Ravens back in the exact same spot. That would be in Massachusetts. All Baltimore could possibly ask after such a gut-wrenching loss a year ago would be to have another chance.
There's a saying: "Be careful what you wish for because you might get it."
The Patriots are rolling right now. They took a pretty good shot last week from a very good Houston Texans team and hung 41 on them in a 41-28 win. New England has been great all year. Had a couple of plays here or there gone their way and they could be 17-0 right now.
Baltimore on the other hand had been struggling mightily coming down the stretch. But when the playoffs began and franchise cornerstone Ray Lewis announced he was retiring after the season, the Ravens have been playing like they do not want Lewis' career to end. First they shut down super rookie Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts 24-9 in the Wild Card Round. That brought them to the high altitude of Denver for the Divisional Round.
Against the Denver Broncos, they found themselves down 35-28 with a long way to go and just a few seconds to get there. But inexplicably, the Broncos secondary let Jacoby Jones get behind them and Flacco hit him with a 71-yard touchdown with 31 seconds left. The Broncos then elected to kill the clock instead of trying to do what Atlanta did the next day, which is try to get into field goal range.
In fairness, the Falcons had no choice as they were trailing by one point at the time. Denver was tied. The Ravens picked off a Peyton Manning pass in overtime and turned it into a field goal to win 38-35 in the fourth longest NFL football game in history.
Do the Ravens have another miracle? Do they even need one? Baltimore gave the Patriots one of their four losses this year in a last second win on a late field goal. So maybe Baltimore is the one team in the AFC that can play with this team.
Ravens and Patriots Odds
Sports Interaction has Baltimore +8 -110 or +300. New England is -8 -110 or -380. Over/under is 52.5. Baltimore has played the Patriots tough twice in the last year. There's no reason to believe they won't again. We will take Baltimore +8 and the under.
