RSR’s Mike Fast continues his countdown of the top 10 Ravens games of 2016. The No. 2 game is a prime-time showdown in the house of the league’s toughest team.
Top 10 Games of 2016: No. 10 – Week 13 vs. Dolphins
Top 10 Games of 2016: No. 9 – Week 7 at New York Jets
Top 10 Games of 2016: No. 8 – Week 11 at Dallas
Top 10 Games of 2016: No. 7 – Week 1 vs. Bills
Top 10 Games of 2016: No. 6 – Week 10 vs. Browns
Top 10 Games of 2016: No. 5 – Week 12 vs. Bengals
Top 10 Games of 2016: No. 4 – Week 17 at Bengals
Top 10 Games of 2016: No. 3 – Week 9 vs. Steelers
Week 14: Ravens at Patriots
All-time record against (regular season and playoffs): 3-9 (1-7, 2-2)
Most recent game: Patriots 35, Ravens 31 (January 10, 2015)
Significance: When you find out you’re going to play the best team in the league on the road on Monday Night Football, you know that game is going to be one of your biggest of the season.
Though the Patriots didn’t win the Super Bowl last year, they did get to the AFC Championship game (one year after winning it all). Despite every team gunning for them year after year, the Patriots remain the standard of winning in the NFL.
Their success starts at the top. Since Bill Belichick became the head coach of the Patriots in 2000, they’ve won four Super Bowls and played three more. Furthermore, in those 16 seasons they’ve made the playoffs 13 times and compiled a regular season record of 187-69.
As the Ravens well know, the Patriots are a particularly vexing team when they play at home. Under Belichick, New England is 15-3 at home in the playoffs. Although, two of their three losses were courtesy of Baltimore (by a combined score of 61-27).
While Baltimore is aware of New England’s dominance at home, it knows it can beat New England in New England when the lights are brightest.
Though this game will be in the regular season, it will be in mid-December. The temperature will be as low as the tension is high.
Considering all the playoff ramifications, this game could turn out to be as important as any the Ravens play this year.
Key Match-ups
C.J. Mosley vs. Tom Brady
When playing the Ravens in years past, Tom Brady used to wear a wristband that read “FIND 20 ON EVERY PLAY.” He was reminding himself to locate Ed Reed on every play (as much as possible), as Reed had a penchant for disguising his coverage.
Brady is a master of the NFL offense. The problem for Baltimore is that Reed no longer occupies their defensive backfield, and the Ravens haven’t found anybody nearly as imposing with whom to replace him.
But Brady, despite turning 39 this coming Wednesday, is still playing at an exceptional level. In fact, he’s the greatest football player I’ve ever seen.
Brady’s impending four-game suspension will cause him to miss his first game since suffering a torn left ACL and MCL in 2008. From the time he returned in 2009, he’s thrown 221 touchdowns to 64 interceptions (3.5:1). As you can see, the man is still playing at an elite level.
One of the players tasked with halting Brady’s offense in this game will be C.J. Mosley. As the middle linebacker and team captain, Mosley is in a position to make a statement on Monday Night Football against a sure-fire Hall of Famer.
Mosley has impressed many in his two NFL seasons. He’s shown his top-tier instincts in college have carried over to the pros. He’s also shown the ability to quickly recover from a bad play, which is very important, especially for young players. You don’t often see him make the same mistake twice.
These two players have only played against each other once (the last time these two teams played), and they both played very well. Brady threw for 367 yards and scored four touchdowns (three passing, one rushing). Mosley recorded 10 tackles and one forced fumble.
Which player will need to take a risk due to a scoreboard deficit? Which player can best recover from a risk that didn’t pay off? Considering they don’t know each other very well (on the field, at least), it’ll be interesting to see how their immense talent manifests itself under such pressure-laden circumstances.
John Harbaugh vs. Bill Belichick
In the last game between these two teams, the Patriots only ran 13 times for 14 yards. The Ravens had two different 14-point leads. Yet, the Patriots ended up winning the game by four points.
It’s still hard to believe the Ravens lost to the Patriots that night. Baltimore was coming off a season in which it won 10 games and made the playoffs for the sixth time in a seven-year span. John Harbaugh did a wonderful job preparing his players and his staff for that game, but Bill Belichick was a little bit better that night.
In fact, according to ESPN, that win was especially noteworthy because it tied Belichick with Tom Landry for first all-time on the list of coaching playoff wins (20).
Of the 36 NFL coaches that have ever coached in at least 10 playoff games, 16 of them have at least 10 playoff wins. Belichick (22) and Harbaugh (10) are two such coaches.
As far as their record against each other is concerned, Belichick has had slightly more success. In eight games against the Ravens since 2008 (when Harbaugh became Baltimore’s head coach), the Patriots are 5-3 with a point differential of only 15 points (206-191).
These two men are experts. Both Belichick and Harbaugh have dealt with all kinds of distractions, team-related legal matters, injuries, and challenging personalities in their careers. Through it all, they’ve practiced a steadfast approach which has resulted in winning their profession’s biggest prize.
On December 11, get ready to witness coaching excellence.
