Travis Thomas: Ravens Déjà Vu?
Every radio show I do this season during Ravens coverage on 105.7 The Fan somebody always compares this seasons Ravens team to the 2013 Super Bowl Team from a few season ago. Honesty, I can see a few similarities but during my research for this fine piece of American blogging you are reading now, I actually found more statistical comparisons to another Super Bowl team in recent memory.
If you crunch the numbers this Baltimore Ravens team compares quite favorably with the 2008 Super Bowl Champion New York Giants. The G-Men finished 10-6 that Regular Season and made the Wildcard. The Giants faced three tough tests on the road in a very deep and formidable NFC that season. They survived and advanced to play the Super Bowl in Glendale Arizona, ironically the same place the Super Bowl is this season. We all remember the Giants opponents don't' we? The undefeated, unbeatable New England Patriots.
The Giants were 12 point underdogs going into that game and nobody including me thought they had a chance to win. Coming into the game the key match up appeared to be the Giants pass rush, which produced a league high 53 sacks in the regular season. That defense was lead by a three headed pass rush monster: Osi Umenyiora, Justin Tuck and Michael Strahan. We all know the rest of the story, that pass rush shut down Brady and the Patriot offense and Eli made clutch plays down the stretch to pull off the biggest upset in the modern day Super Bowl era.
Similarly, the Ravens possess two of the top ten league leaders in sacks. Elvis Dumervil (league leader) and Terrell Suggs. These two studs have combined for 28 sacks alone. As a team the Ravens rank 3rd in the NFL and 2nd in the AFC in sacks. Once Haloti Ngata returns to this lineup, I like the Ravens "Big Three" pass rushers even more. By comparison, I would argue that the Ravens front seven is better when you factor in CJ Mosley, Timmy Jernigan, etc. With two regular season games finishing up against subpar quarterbacks the Ravens have a chance to pad those sack numbers even more. Not to mention the fact that teams who finish the regular season hot, always make deep runs in the playoffs, if not win it all. By winning out this regular season, the Ravens would go into the playoffs winners of four straight.
Look out NFL World if that happens.
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