Don’t get me wrong, these are the two best teams right now and who I predicted would win last week, and both might have went on to win in overtime had the mishaps not happened on the other team. Even Tom Brady said after their win that he played like garbage and the defense bailed him out.
The defense didn’t bail him out, Billy Cundiff did. The Ravens defense worked hard to contain Brady and keep him from slashing up their secondary like he’s done to defenses all year. If you would have told me last week that the Patriots were only going to score 23 points I would have told you they would be going home.
There wasn’t much Brady did to win the game, there wasn’t even much the Patriots defense did to win the game as they gave up almost 400 yards to a mediocre offense at best. Both quarterbacks were 22/36 passing but Flacco passed for 67 more yards. Brady didn’t even throw for a touchdown and Flacco threw for two. Brady threw two interceptions and Flacco only threw one.
On paper there is no way the Patriots should have won this game. But they did and that’s that. Only because of another person’s failure are they moving on, not because they earned it.
The same can be said for the Giants. Again, they have been playing the best football in the playoffs and I think they’ll win the Super Bowl, but they seemed out of sync Sunday and did not look like a team that earned their way into the big game.
Not only did the 49ers give the game to the Giants once, but they gave it to them twice. And it was the same guy that was seemingly working undercover for the Giants. Kyle Williams lost two fumbles on returns, the later one setting up the Giants with a game winning field goal in overtime.
While you certainly can’t say the 49ers were the better team on Sunday, when watching the game it definitely felt like the momentum was shifting and had Williams just fielded that punt they would have found a way to get down and kick a field goal. Maybe it’s because they were at home, but I just kept expecting them to win that game.
Eli Manning was not the superstar quarterback that everyone was tabbing him as this week. He looked confused and as goofy as always. Hardly any of his passes were on target and if it wasn’t for Victor Cruz taking on the form of Calvin Johnson he wouldn’t have been nearly as successful against a Niners secondary that isn’t exactly scary. Yes he threw for 316 yards, but he threw the ball 32 more times than Alex Smith, who had a better QB rating, for what that’s worth.
So while the Super Bowl is set and the teams in them are the ones I believe should be participating, I would have liked to see them driving down the field to win the conference championship games instead of having it handed to them by other teams mistakes.
You can follow Jake on Twitter at: @j8a1k0e or on his MLB Braves blog at: http://bravesandmore.mlblogs.com/
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