SUPER BOWL SUNDAY 49ERS VS RAVENS
The nation takes an unofficial national holiday as pro football will crown its newest champion this Sunday night in the Big Easy, New Orleans Louisiana. Baltimore and San Francisco, two teams with alot of character battle in the Superdome for football supremacy. Here's how I see it:
On pure talent alone, I believe the 49ers are the more talented team especially on defense. San Francisco is the younger team, and on defense the combination of speed and youth especially with the front seven should give the 49ers an edge here.
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The 49ers edge of defense however is somewhat diluted by a very shaky secondaries that is susceptible to the long ball -- one of Joe Flacco's greatest attributes. On offense the teams are closely matched with one exception -- the running ability of Kaepernick at qb for San Francisco.
The Ravens must eliminate the run game for Kaepernick's arsenal to have a chance to win this game. One way to do it is to hit the QB often and he deploys the "read option". Back in the day defenses had to battle with wishbone offenses that often featured a running qb. The way defenses stopped the qb effectiveness was to punish him with brutal and violent hitting. Somehow the quarterbacks didn't seem so eager to run after getting slapped around a bit.
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The other thing in Baltimore's favor is the intangibles. The Ravens have a big emotional edge as Ray Lewis ends his hall of fame career in this game. This may also be the swan song for the Ravens all world safety Ed Reed who is a free agent after this game. We look for Reed and Lewis to have strong games and for Flacco to have success throwing deep vs San Francisco much like Matt Ryan did two weeks ago in Atlanta.
We see a high scoring exciting super bowl perhaps being decided by a late game field goal...or miss...doth fly the Ravens...Baltimore 31, San Francisco 28.
