AFC Championship Game 2012: Baltimore Ravens Won't Let Opportunity Slip Away

Everything has opened up for the Baltimore Ravens this season. There is no Pittsburgh Steelers or Indianapolis Colts standing in their way. This could be their final year of being legitimate Super Bowl contenders.

After failing to reach the Super Bowl in every postseason in the Joe Flacco era, Baltimore will finally get over the hump when they defeat the New England Patriots on Sunday.

This was easily one of the worst AFC brackets in recent history. There were two rookie quarterbacks (Andy Dalton, T.J. Yates), pretty much a rookie quarterback (Tim Tebow) and a Steelers team that was extremely banged up.

Everything seemed to open up for the Ravens.

Standing in their way is the New England Patriots, a team that didn’t defeat a playoff team all season long. They played two teams that made the playoffs (Steelers, New York Giants) and lost both. Maybe that doesn’t sound like much, but I would consider that to be relevant.

New England is a great team. Their offense is one of the best in the league, Aaron Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski are playing lights out at the tight end position and their defense, albeit against Tebow and the Denver Broncos, played great, swarming football last weekend.

Baltimore, however, has the better overall team. They run the ball with Ray Rice, play great defense and Flacco is useful when he is awarded time to throw the ball.

The Ravens defeated Pittsburgh twice, Cincinnati twice, Houston and San Francisco. Their resume clearly is head-and-shoulders better than New England’s.

Getting pressure on Tom Brady up the middle is how you defeat the Patriots. Once a quarterback feels the heat up the middle they tend to be quicker in their delivery. If the Ravens can attack Brady, causing the "Golden Boy" to feel like he needs to release the football quicker, Baltimore will have success.

Guys like Haloti Ngata, Terrell Suggs, Cory Redding and Jarret Johnson are capable of getting pressure on Brady. They have 26 sacks combined. Baltimore has 48 sacks total this season, the same amount as the New York Giants who defeated the Patriots earlier in the year.

It’s time for the Ravens to show up and make a stand. For years now they continue to fall short in the postseason. This could be their last chance to make it to a Super Bowl; they better make it count.