Sports

Five Things We Learned from the Ravens' 28-13 win over the New England Patriots

Kenneth K. Lam, Baltimore Sun

1. Eight weeks ago, I said that something special was happening with this team. And despite more key injuries, a coaching staff shakeup, and a three-game losing streak, the Ravens never stopped believing in themselves. Now, here they are -- already a special team -- back in the Super Bowl with a chance to seize their football immortality. It seems like so long ago that Ray Rice did the highly improbable, catching a dump-off from Joe Flacco and evading seemingly everyone on the San Diego Chargers active roster as he picked up 29 yards to keep the Ravens alive in Week 12 so they could win in overtime. That crazy play best represents what the Ravens have pulled off this season. Despite seemingly long odds, they never took their eyes off where they wanted to go, they never stopped battling for each other, they never stopped churning their legs. I said in this space then that something special was happening with this team. That looked foolish for a few weeks, when the Ravens lost four games in December, but it now seems more prescient than ever. These Ravens are a special group of special players with a special bond, and it didn't take another miracle for them to get where they are today (though that bomb to Jacoby Jones last weekend may beg to differ). They flat-out earned it. The Ravens were the better team when they schooled Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts. They were the better team when they wore down Peyton Manning and made a mockery of the Denver Broncos defense. And they were the better team when they took all that Tom Brady and the New England Patriots could give them and then attacked back, dominating the second half in Sunday's 28-13 win in the AFC championship game to get to the Super Bowl for the first time since 2001. Even after a difficult December tested them, the Ravens knew they would be there all along, that the last ride of Ray Lewis would end in New Orleans, even though an ice-cold reality suggested otherwise. They heard their critics and doubters (I was among them at times) talk. That the mounting injuries to stars like Lardarius Webb, Haloti Ngata and Lewis would be too much to overcome. That they were crazy for firing Cam Cameron with three weeks left in the regular season. That a champion had to coming screaming into the playoffs on a six-game winning streak to win the Super Bowl. That the defense was too old, Flacco was too enigmatic, Rice was fumble-prone. They heard it all. They filed it away. And then they unleashed a fury on the football field. "We came, we saw, we conquered," Terrell Suggs said Sunday as the Ravens spilled into the locker room. Suggs recently admitted that he believed last year's team was better than this year's bunch, at least in terms of talent. And maybe it was on paper, whatever that is good for. But these Ravens, after a trying 12 months since the last time they were in Foxborough, are on the verge of putting their fingerprints all over the Lombardi Trophy, reaching "football immortality" as Suggs likes to put it. All that stands in their way are the San Francisco 49ers, and it figures to be one heck of a game, especially if you enjoy Harbaughs. But even if the storybook ending isn't written for Ray and the Ravens, they are already special for battling their way to the Super Bowl despite all of the obstacles they had to overcome along the way.

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Gene Sweeney Jr., Baltimore Sun

2. In stepping over Peyton Manning and Tom Brady on the way to his first Super Bowl, Joe Flacco announced to the football world that this will be his team going forward. With 140 seconds left in Sunday's AFC championship game, as the Ravens began to realize that they had finally broken through and gotten to the Super Bowl, the CBS television crew accidentally broadcasted audio from the Baltimore sideline. As Ray Lewis hugged everyone within his bionic arm's reach and John Harbaugh berated officials as if his team was the one that trailed by 15 points, someone yelled out loudly, "We're going to get that [freaking] ring, baby." I might be mistaken here, but I'm pretty sure it was Joe Flacco. Yes, that nonchalant, sleepy-eyed quarterback who opponents, analysts and other doubters said would always somehow find a way to trip over his own feet while trying to carry the Ravens to the Super Bowl. They can't say it any longer. Not only has Flacco lifted his team on his back on the road to New Orleans, Flacco has also stepped over future Hall-of-Famers Peyton Manning and Tom Brady on the way there. It will likely take a Lombardi Trophy for Flacco to cement his status among the league's upper echelon of quarterbacks, but what Flacco has done in this year's playoffs is nothing short of remarkable. Flacco has thrown for 853 yards and eight touchdowns, and he has avoided the kind of back-breaking turnovers that plagued him in the past. Simply put, he is putting up superstar numbers, and he took over Sunday's 28-13 win against Brady's New England Patriots in the third quarter. After spending most of the first half with Flacco under center, the Ravens, in the words of coach John Harbaugh, "made the decision in the second half to cut it loose." So the Ravens put Flacco in the shotgun and picked up the pace. A rhythm passer, Flacco completed a couple of passes to get into a groove. Next thing we knew, it was raining touchdowns in Foxborough. Flacco completed 15 of his 22 attempts for 159 yards in the second half after he found wide receiver Anquan Boldin for his third touchdown pass of the game with 11:13 left. About a half hour or so later, someone -- maybe it was Flacco or maybe I need to get my ears checked -- dropped that eff-bomb on the sideline. And soon Flacco would saunter out onto the field to take a knee in the victory formation, the eighth time he has done that now in five trips to the postseason. He looked slightly goofy at the postgame news conference, where he took a backseat, of course, to Lewis, who should probably invest in some tear-proof eye-black for the Super Bowl two weeks from now. Flacco may never turn it on in that kind of spotlight, but there is no doubt that he is the kind of player who is no longer disoriented by the glare of postseason football. There is also no doubt that this is Flacco's team now, and it would be even if Lewis hadn't coronated him as "the general" after Flacco beat Manning's Denver Broncos last weekend. Flacco has made a loud statement, echoing from New England to San Francisco. Now all that's left is for him "to get that [freaking] ring."

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Baltimore Sun reporter/blogger Matt Vensel analyzes the Ravens' victory over the New England Patriots in the AFC championship game.