What’s the Big Difference?

What is the biggest difference between this game and the last time the Patriots and Ravens clashed in the playoffs in 2012? 

Rick: The biggest difference between this year and the 2012 AFC Championship Game is that the Patriots have the two cornerbacks in Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner. My first reaction when I saw this would be the matchup was at least Julian Edelman and Marquice Cole would not be covering Baltimore’s top receivers. Joe Flacco lies to throw the deep ball and Revis/Browner should at least be able to limit how many of those are successful. Flacco has proven to be one of the better playoff QB’s in this era, but New England’s talent on defense is much better than what it was two years ago.

Raj: For me, the biggest difference is that this time, the Patriots have a defense and they have a Gronk. If we flash back to 2012, we remember that Gronk wasn’t really there. Granted, Hernandez and Welker were but Gronkowski’s presence makes things a whole lot different. In that same game, the Pats had to juggle cornernbacks, between McCourty, Arrington, and Marquice Cole. Despite this fact, they only lost by 2 scores. With Revis and Browner set at cornernback, expect the Ravens’ receivers to have a difficult time on the field. When that happens, they’re forced to run the ball and while Forsett is doing work for their team, the linebacking core for this year’s Pats has been excellent (but had a lot of holes in 2012 since no one could really tackle Ray Rice back then).

Derek: Only two years removed from the last playoff matchup, there’s plenty of new and missing faces on both sides of the ball.  Gone are Ray Lewis, Aaron Hernandez, and Ray Rice, which means our chances of seeing a murder or assault on the field have substantially decreased.   Other than that, I would say that the availability of Rob Gronkowski will have the biggest impact and will ultimately be what sways the game in New England’s favor.   Revis and Browner will certainly play a large role, but in thinking back to the 2012 AFC title game, it wasn’t the defense that lost the contest for the Patriots.  Tom Brady and the offense were shut out in the second half and couldn’t get a single drive going.  With Gronk fully healthy, this is going to be an entirely different ball game.