It’s easy to get caught up in all the Tom Brady, Bill Belichick hype that goes with backing the New England Patriots. Certainly the Patriots looked great against Tim Tebow and Denver last week. But, really, how good were the Broncos, who were 8-8 and backed into the playoffs? Brady and Belichick are sure first ballot Hall of Famers.Brady leads a flashy offense that averaged 32.1 points a game, third-best in the NFL, and a second-best 428.2 yards per game. Behind all that glitz, though, are several disturbing facts about the Patriots. They’ve never had a playoff defense this weak before in the Belichick era, ranking second from the bottom in total defense and passing yards. Aside from Denver, the Patriots met only two other playoff teams. They lost both of those games falling to the Giants at home by four points and to the Steelers – a team Baltimore went 2-0 against – by eight points. For all of Brady and Belichick’s greatness, the Patriots had not won a playoff game since 2007 until beating overmatched Denver this past Saturday. Before defeating the Broncos, the Patriots had failed to cover in their past six postseason matchups. One of those non-covers was a straight-up loss two seasons ago at home to Baltimore by 19 points as three and one-half point favorites.The Ravens rushed for 234 yards in that 33-14 victory while picking off Brady three times and holding him to just 154 yards passing. Brady happens to be just 1-3 in his last four playoff contests.The Ravens play in the much tougher AFC North Division and have a far stronger defense than the Patriots. Baltimore played six games against playoff teams this season and won all six. The Ravens beat the Texans, 49ers, Steelers twice and Bengals twice. Baltimore achieved this with a defense that ranked in the top four in all the major sta- tistical categories – fewest points at 16.6, total defense, pass defense and rush defense. The Patriots can’t come close to matching Baltimore on defense. Ray Lewis still remains a force,Terrell Suggs is one of the top pass rushers in football, Haloti Ngata is in the discussion for best nose guard and the secondary is underrated.The Ravens have the defensive backfield depth to play man-to-man against New England. Brady has plenty of weapons with Wes Welker, Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez, but the Patriots’ lack of speed on the flanks is something the Ravens can exploit. New England scored just 17 points on Pittsburgh, the best defense it faced. The Giants held the Patriots to 20 points. Baltimore is more than capable of holding the Patriots to a similar total, especially with New England not at full strength in its offensive line. Don’t look for the Ravens to get rattled either in Foxboro.They’ve already played seven road playoff games during four years under John Harbaugh posting a 4-3 record. Certainly the Patriots own a huge edge with Brady facing Joe Flacco.The Ravens, though, have two reli- able weapons for Flacco to fall back on in Ray Rice, one of the best all-pur- pose backs in the league, and Anquan Boldin, one of the better possession receivers. Boldin, now fully healthy after late season knee surgery, is a matchup headache. Flacco isn’t bad as some may think. He’s thrown for more than 3,600 yards during each of the last three seasons. He has plenty of playoff experience being the first quarterback in NFL history to go to the playoffs in the first four years of his career. No quarterback in the history of the league also has achieved more regular-season victories through his first four seasons than Flacco.The Patriots lack a shutdown cornerback, which makes speedster Torrey Smith and deep threat Lee Evans dangerous for the Ravens.
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