I really disliked the 49ers most of my younger years when they were awesome. That being said, I really like this team. I love the way they play D, but most of all I really like Harbaugh. That was an awesome game on Saturday. I will be rooting for the 49ers for sure.
The Packers pulled off one of the biggest choke jobs in NFL history, and they should have lost by 30. Both touchdown drives that they had yesterday would not have happened had it not been for horrible calls by the officials.
The Patriots and Jets have their border war, which has had its share of memorable moments, particularly in recent years, when it morphed into the cold war when Eric Mangini patrolled New York’s sideline, and since Rex Ryan began roaring.
The Patriots and Colts have engaged in some epic, ratings-busting showdowns, in the regular season and playoffs, that showcased the premier quarterbacks of their generation.
The Patriots and the Ravens don’t play as often, but there is plenty of animosity between the sides based on their brief but intense history - they just don’t like each other.
New England and Baltimore will meet Sunday at Gillette Stadium in the AFC Championship game with a chance to play in Super Bowl XLVI on the line. Never before has so much been at stake when these two rivals square off.
As rivalries go, Patriots-Ravens does not have the history of Packers-Bears or Harvard-Yale. Sunday will be the eighth all-time meeting since the Ravens entered the league in 1996. It’s the seventh of the Bill Belichick era and the sixth since Tom Brady became New England’s starting quarterback.
The Patriots have won all but one of the previous meetings, though their margin of victory has shrunk in recent years and the intensity has ramped up.
A brief history of the bad blood:
■Dec. 3, 2007: The 12-0 Patriots traveled to M&T Bank Stadium for a Monday night game against a Ravens squad with just four wins. The Patriots trailed, 24-20, when they got the ball with 3:30 to play. Brady drove the Patriots into the red zone, but the Ravens stopped them on fourth down – or so they thought. Defensive coordinator Rex Ryan called timeout, negating the stop. Adding to the drama: assistants aren’t supposed to call timeouts, only the head coach, but the official simply heard the request and granted it.
When the teams lined up again for fourth down, New England got new life when Baltimore was called for holding, giving it a fresh set of downs. Brady found Jabar Gaffney in the end zone, the receiver held on, and the touchdown held up.
After the game, the Ravens accused the officials of showing favoritism to the Patriots.
■Oct. 4, 2009: The Patriots took a 21-7 lead at halftime and held on for a 27-21 win at Gillette Stadium. The Ravens twice were flagged for roughing the passer, the second on Terrell Suggs under the so-called “Brady rule’’ when he lunged at the quarterback’s knee.
“Without totally going off the wall here, it is embarrassing to the game,’’ Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis said, basically going off the wall. “Brady is good enough to make his own plays, let him make the play. Both of their [first-half] touchdown drives had personal fouls that kept the drives alive.’’
Bill Belichick even got into the act - as revealed in “A Football Life,’’ which chronicled the Patriots 2009 season - as the coach and Baltimore receiver Derrick Mason had an obscenity-laced back-and-forth during the game.
■Jan. 10, 2010: The Ravens returned to Gillette for a wild-card game and gained their first victory against New England. Running back Ray Rice took the first snap of the game for an 83-yard touchdown, the Ravens scored 24 first-quarter points, and Baltimore rolled to a 33-14 win, the first home playoff loss for New England in over 30 years.
■Oct. 17, 2010: New England won, 23-20, in overtime at Gillette. Suggs said of Brady after the game, “He just better hope he don’t see us again.’’
The next day, Brady, in a rare moment of trash talking, said, “Well he had his chance, so maybe if he gets another chance he can try to back those words up. We play those guys a lot and they’ve only beat us one time in all the times that I’ve played them. So they talk a lot for beating us once in nine years.’’
A couple of months later, Suggs revealed he did not vote for Brady to go to the Pro Bowl, reasoning that Brady likely didn’t vote for him either. A couple of days later, Suggs reversed course, saying he did vote for Brady.
On Jan. 13, 2011, Suggs told Sirius NFL radio that Brady’s three Super Bowl wins are “questionable,’’ citing the Tuck Rule game and Spygate.
The linebacker also pointed to that 2009 regular-season game as the genesis of his dislike for Brady, saying, “It all brews from when I nicked his knee a little bit. I was like, ‘Wow, you almost hit a guy and get flagged?’ I never knew one man could have so much power.’’
After yesterday’s victory over the Texans, the Ravens already were looking ahead to their bout with the Patriots.
After complimenting Belichick and Brady, perennial Pro Bowl safety Ed Reed said, “We’re coming in and they know it.’’
anyone who thinks tebow is better than stafford is an idiot
brady is better than montana. if you'd given brady jerry rice instead of a revolving door of role-players and a moody randy moss, he might have 6 or 7 rings by now
i can cheer for the niners now. they were hard to cheer against when they were the dynasty.
the packers came out and did exactly what the falcons did last year.
the falcons hired the jags old oc. i guess they really don't want to win
I'll say it again after seeing the games over the weekend. The Bears need big black receivers. An upgrade at tight end wouldn't hurt either. Good thing they decided that they didn't need Greg Olsen because he didn't fit in with Mike Martz's offense. [-(
WakeOfAshesPosts: 21,665destroyer of motherfuckers
Bummer about the SF-NO game. Although the game went down almost exactly how I thought it would. The only thing that surprised me is SF coming up with enough Offense to win. Vernon Davis- WOW.
anyone who thinks tebow is better than stafford is an idiot
brady is better than montana. if you'd given brady jerry rice instead of a revolving door of role-players and a moody randy moss, he might have 6 or 7 rings by now
i can cheer for the niners now. they were hard to cheer against when they were the dynasty.
the packers came out and did exactly what the falcons did last year.
the falcons hired the jags old oc. i guess they really don't want to win
idk if i would say he is better...but he is sure damn well close...and thats in the free agency era where teams can not keep an all star team together for a decade...fact is those 49er teams had HOF talent all over the field...something brady has not had
the falcon offense only clicked when they went no-huddle and threw the ball a lot. it makes sense: the more you use your receiving weapons, the more likely they are to get in a groove. the falcons have quite a few at this moment and 3 of them make big money. i'm sick of hearing this shit about "we gotta be able to run the football". like it's something they can't/didn't do. the falcons ran the ball plenty. the problem was that they didn't have much balance and when turner didn't have a great game, they floundered because they relied too heavily on receivers who had spent the last couple of quarters playing decoy. by the time in almost every game that they start passing, the opposing defense knew it was coming and blitzed a lot. it's tough to hold roddy and julio responsible for all their drops when they're only getting so many wobbley passes thrown at them every game. it would benefit everyone if the falcons would pass 55% of the time and let matt run the offense like peyton did in indy. he's smart like that. it sucks watching him come to the line and recognize a shitty matchup and not be able to do anything about it. i was hoping for someone that was a lot more vertical in their vision of offense. matt ryan has a reciever corps that any other qb in the nfl would kill for. they need to unleash them.
Smith's job depends on the hire of the OC and DC. I doubt he didn't do his homework.
he's part of the problem though. he's one of those old school dudes that thinks you *have* to run the ball a lot, even when it doesn't benefit you. during the season, they couldn't keep up with the saints and packers because they'd get behind and keep wasting time trying to run. the just don't have the o-line for that shit.
Comments
The Packers pulled off one of the biggest choke jobs in NFL history, and they should have lost by 30. Both touchdown drives that they had yesterday would not have happened had it not been for horrible calls by the officials.
The Patriots and Colts have engaged in some epic, ratings-busting showdowns, in the regular season and playoffs, that showcased the premier quarterbacks of their generation.
The Patriots and the Ravens don’t play as often, but there is plenty of animosity between the sides based on their brief but intense history - they just don’t like each other.
New England and Baltimore will meet Sunday at Gillette Stadium in the AFC Championship game with a chance to play in Super Bowl XLVI on the line. Never before has so much been at stake when these two rivals square off.
As rivalries go, Patriots-Ravens does not have the history of Packers-Bears or Harvard-Yale. Sunday will be the eighth all-time meeting since the Ravens entered the league in 1996. It’s the seventh of the Bill Belichick era and the sixth since Tom Brady became New England’s starting quarterback.
The Patriots have won all but one of the previous meetings, though their margin of victory has shrunk in recent years and the intensity has ramped up.
A brief history of the bad blood:
■Dec. 3, 2007: The 12-0 Patriots traveled to M&T Bank Stadium for a Monday night game against a Ravens squad with just four wins. The Patriots trailed, 24-20, when they got the ball with 3:30 to play. Brady drove the Patriots into the red zone, but the Ravens stopped them on fourth down – or so they thought. Defensive coordinator Rex Ryan called timeout, negating the stop. Adding to the drama: assistants aren’t supposed to call timeouts, only the head coach, but the official simply heard the request and granted it.
When the teams lined up again for fourth down, New England got new life when Baltimore was called for holding, giving it a fresh set of downs. Brady found Jabar Gaffney in the end zone, the receiver held on, and the touchdown held up.
After the game, the Ravens accused the officials of showing favoritism to the Patriots.
■Oct. 4, 2009: The Patriots took a 21-7 lead at halftime and held on for a 27-21 win at Gillette Stadium. The Ravens twice were flagged for roughing the passer, the second on Terrell Suggs under the so-called “Brady rule’’ when he lunged at the quarterback’s knee.
“Without totally going off the wall here, it is embarrassing to the game,’’ Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis said, basically going off the wall. “Brady is good enough to make his own plays, let him make the play. Both of their [first-half] touchdown drives had personal fouls that kept the drives alive.’’
Bill Belichick even got into the act - as revealed in “A Football Life,’’ which chronicled the Patriots 2009 season - as the coach and Baltimore receiver Derrick Mason had an obscenity-laced back-and-forth during the game.
■Jan. 10, 2010: The Ravens returned to Gillette for a wild-card game and gained their first victory against New England. Running back Ray Rice took the first snap of the game for an 83-yard touchdown, the Ravens scored 24 first-quarter points, and Baltimore rolled to a 33-14 win, the first home playoff loss for New England in over 30 years.
■Oct. 17, 2010: New England won, 23-20, in overtime at Gillette. Suggs said of Brady after the game, “He just better hope he don’t see us again.’’
The next day, Brady, in a rare moment of trash talking, said, “Well he had his chance, so maybe if he gets another chance he can try to back those words up. We play those guys a lot and they’ve only beat us one time in all the times that I’ve played them. So they talk a lot for beating us once in nine years.’’
A couple of months later, Suggs revealed he did not vote for Brady to go to the Pro Bowl, reasoning that Brady likely didn’t vote for him either. A couple of days later, Suggs reversed course, saying he did vote for Brady.
On Jan. 13, 2011, Suggs told Sirius NFL radio that Brady’s three Super Bowl wins are “questionable,’’ citing the Tuck Rule game and Spygate.
The linebacker also pointed to that 2009 regular-season game as the genesis of his dislike for Brady, saying, “It all brews from when I nicked his knee a little bit. I was like, ‘Wow, you almost hit a guy and get flagged?’ I never knew one man could have so much power.’’
After yesterday’s victory over the Texans, the Ravens already were looking ahead to their bout with the Patriots.
After complimenting Belichick and Brady, perennial Pro Bowl safety Ed Reed said, “We’re coming in and they know it.’’
brady is better than montana. if you'd given brady jerry rice instead of a revolving door of role-players and a moody randy moss, he might have 6 or 7 rings by now
i can cheer for the niners now. they were hard to cheer against when they were the dynasty.
the packers came out and did exactly what the falcons did last year.
the falcons hired the jags old oc. i guess they really don't want to win
idk if i would say he is better...but he is sure damn well close...and thats in the free agency era where teams can not keep an all star team together for a decade...fact is those 49er teams had HOF talent all over the field...something brady has not had