Baltimore Ravens Advance to the 2013 AFC Championship Game

By Craig Ballard
Mitch Stringer-US PRESSWIRE

@craigballard77

The Baltimore Ravens have advanced to the AFC Championship game in the 2013 NFL Playoffs by defeating the Denver Broncos in a phenomenal game in Divisional weekend. They will play at the winner of the Houston Texans at New England Patriots game next Sunday for the right to represent the AFC in Super Bowl XLVII (as the 2013 NFL Playoffs Insider for Rant Sports I have your Texans at Patriots game preview RIGHT HERE).

Regardless of who the Ravens face next weekend it will be a rematch from earlier this season. The Ravens beat the Patriots 31-30 in a week 3 game at Baltimore, and they were hammered 43-13 in a week 7 loss at Houston. If it is Baltimore at New England then we would also have a rematch of the 2012 AFC Championship game. We can already see that the 2013 AFC Championship game is going to have extremely interesting story lines.

The Ravens defense has had teams run 84 plays on them in each of their playoff games so they are surely a tired unit, but it is worth noting that the their two playoff wins are the only two games all season where the defense had all of Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Haloti Ngata, and Terrell Suggs playing. I noted in an earlier article that could be an X-factor in these playoffs as we have seen the Ravens make playoff runs on the strength of their defense before.

We will know who the Ravens will face next weekend in a matter of hours, but either way this is a team that has to be considering themselves a team of destiny as they limped to the finish line in the regular season (even firing their offensive coordinator) but have been unstoppable in the playoffs so far. The Broncos know they should have won their Divisional game vs the Ravens as they had multiple opportunities to secure the victory, but it is the Ravens that advanced. One more ring for Lewis on his way out the door?

Thank you for reading my work! Pass it on…

All of my articles as the Rant Sports 2013 NFL Playoffs Insider are RIGHT HERE

Share On FacebookShare StumbleUpon

You May Also Like