Staff Writer
It all comes down to this.
On Sunday, February 3, the Baltimore
Ravens and the San Francisco
49ers will meet in Super Bowl
XLVII (6:00 PM ET, CBS) at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New
Orleans.
The game will mark the first time
in any of the four major professional sports (NFL, NBA, MLB or NHL) that
brothers – Baltimore’s John and San Francisco’s Jim Harbaugh – will match up
against one another as head coaches in a postseason game.
Both the Ravens and 49ers are
undefeated in the Super Bowl. San Francisco won Super Bowls XVI, XIX, XXIII,
XXIV and XXIX and are making their first Super Bowl appearance since the 1994
season. The Ravens’ lone Super Bowl appearance came in the 2000 season.
Super Bowl XLVII will be the second
Super Bowl in which each team lost its conference championship game the
previous year. In 2011, the 49ers lost to the New York Giants in the NFC title
game and the Ravens were defeated by the New England Patriots in the AFC
Championship Game.
During Championship Game Weekend,
the Ravens and 49ers became the first set of road teams to win the Conference
Championships since 1997 (Denver and Green Bay). In the second halves of their
games, the Ravens (21-0) and 49ers (14-0) outscored their opponents 35-0. The
AFC (47.7 million viewers) and NFC (42.0 million viewers) Championship Games
ranked as TV’s most-watched programs since Super Bowl XLVI.
With the Ravens playing in the
Super Bowl, this is the seventh time in the past eight seasons in which a Wild
Card team has advanced to the Super Bowl.
The win at New England marked the
sixth road playoff victory for Flacco, the most in NFL history. His eight
postseason wins are tied with Ben Roethlisberger for the second-most in a
quarterback’s first five NFL seasons, trailing only Brady (nine).
Flacco leads the NFL in the
playoffs with a 114.7 passer rating, which includes eight touchdowns and no
interceptions. In NFL postseason history, the only quarterbacks to finish a
postseason with at least nine touchdowns and no interceptions are former 49ers
quarterbacks and Pro Football Hall of Famers Steve Young (nine touchdowns;
1994) and Joe Montana (11 touchdowns; 1989).
Veteran linebacker Ray Lewis – who
was named the MVP of Super Bowl XXXV – has led the Baltimore defense. The
Ravens joined the 2010 New York Jets as the only teams to defeat both Peyton Manning
and Tom Brady in the same postseason. Lewis, who will retire after the season,
leads the NFL with 44 tackles in the playoffs.
The 49ers erased a 17-0 deficit in
the NFC Championship Game to defeat Atlanta Falcons 28-24. San Francisco is one
of only three teams to win a postseason game on the road after trailing by as
many as 17 points.
San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick,
who took over as the team’s starting quarterback in Week 11due to an Alex Smith
concussion, has guided the team to a 7-2 record (.778) in his starts, including
a pair of postseason victories. In those nine starts, he has a 101.2 passer
rating (13 touchdowns, four interceptions) and has rushed for 440 yards with
four TDs.
In the NFC Championship Game, he
completed 16 of 21 passes (76.2 percent) for 233 yards with one touchdown, no
interceptions and a 127.7 passer rating. His 11.1 yards per pass mark was the
highest in 49ers postseason history, besting the previous club record of 10.7
held by Joe Montana.
Kaepernick will be the fourth
quarterback in the Super Bowl era to start the Super Bowl in the same season as
his first career NFL start, joining Tom Brady, Kurt Warner and Vince Ferragamo.
Kaepernick’s seven career
regular-season starts are the third-fewest for a starting quarterback in the
Super Bowl, trailing only Jeff Hostetler (four) and Ferragamo (five).
In the postseason, Kaepernick is
posting a 105.9 passer rating and has rushed for 202 yards. No player has ever
posted a 100+ passer rating and rushed for at least 200 yards in a single
postseason.
It
should be a highly contested matchup, but in the end I think the Ravens pull
out a victory.
