In their last three games against New England — including a 33-14 win in the playoffs two years ago — the Ravens have sacked Brady nine times and forced him to commit seven turnovers. Couple that with Pagano bringing a more aggressive style than former coordinator Greg Mattison and it’s not difficult envisioning the Ravens putting heat on Brady despite the Patriots having a stout offensive line. The featured matchup will be New England left tackle Matt Light trying to slow down Pro Bowl linebacker Terrell Suggs.
After failing to record a sack against Houston quarterback T.J. Yates in the divisional round, instead content to drop into coverage against the rookie, the Ravens will need to turn up the heat on Brady to find their way to the Super Bowl.
“You don’t want him back there just like, ‘Oh, we’re just going to play catch today,'” said Suggs, who recorded 14 sacks in the regular season but just one in hist last four games including the win over the Texans. “You don’t want him to get in his zone, so to say. I think pressure is going to be crucial, but it’s always crucial.”
The Ravens understand what’s in front of them. They must compete against the most explosive offense they’ve seen all season, but the lack of attention paid to their defense will certainly be used as motivation for a group that’s always thrived on emotion.
In the Ravens’ minds, people can continue to focus on Brady and Welker and the two tight ends; Baltimore is very confident in the likes of Suggs and Lewis and two other Pro Bowl players in defensive tackle Haloti Ngata and future Hall of Fame safety Ed Reed.
For all the star power in the New England huddle that will pose an immense challenge, the Ravens know the Patriots will have their work cut out for them as well on Sunday.
Even if few are talking about it.
“We couldn’t care less about what people think about us across the league,” Reed said. “It’s not about what people think on the outside of this building. It’s about us proving to ourselves what we can do and knowing what we can do and going out there and proving it.”
And the Ravens will try to prove that the archaic way of winning championships can still apply in this new era of high-powered offenses in the NFL.
Ravens looking to prove defense still king against high-scoring Patriots
Luke Jones
Luke Jones is the Ravens and Orioles beat reporter for WNST BaltimorePositive.com and is a PFWA member. His mind is consumed with useless sports knowledge, pro wrestling promos, and movie quotes, but he often forgets where he put his phone. Luke's favorite sports memories include being one of the thousands of kids who waited for Cal Ripken's autograph after Orioles games in the summer of 1995, attending the Super Bowl XXXV victory parade with his dad in the pouring rain, and watching the Terps advance to the Final Four at the Carrier Dome in 2002. Follow him on social media @BaltimoreLuke or email him at Luke@wnst.net.
8
Paid Advertisement
Podcast Audio Vault
88Paid Advertisement
Share the Post:
8Paid Advertisement
Right Now in Baltimore
It's the people who elevate the neighborhood vibe at Koco's Pub in Lauraville
We get the privilege of going all over town with our Maryland Crab Cake Tour but nothing takes it back to the old neighborhood like an afternoon at Koco's Pub in Lauraville and doing the show between the kitchen and the bar with Marcella Knight, who has been celebrating 40 years of local business by making even more of her mother's elevated and amazing crab cakes.
Ravens had little choice but to draft Ioane to anchor interior offensive line
Protecting Lamar Jackson and getting the interior offensive line to a better place were just too important to put off any longer.
Telling four decades of the history of local high school sports
No one has covered local high school sports longer or better than Gary Adornato, who joins Nestor at Koco's Pub and updates us on the modern journalism and news gathering being done on the prep circuit in the era of NIL, and with college sports in disarray and kids focusing on one sport far earlier. We've come a long way since the "All Metro" pages of The Baltimore Sun back in the 1980s...
888Paid Advertisement
