"This is going to be a tough football game," Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said to the Baltimore Sun. "There's a reason these guys have the record they have. There's a reason they won their division. There's a reason they got a home game. It's really a tough place to play. Historically in the playoffs, it's been an incredibly tough place to play. So, we've got our hands full."
"Historically in the playoffs, it's been an incredibly tough place to play"? Really? That's a tough thing to gauge, John. When the game is played on Sunday, it will have been 17 years and 1 day since the last home playoff win for the Chiefs. A lot's changed since then. For example: The Houston Oilers were still a team. The Seahawks were still in the AFC and the Jacksonville Jaguars didn't even exist. So, here's what I think: Home field advantage isn't going to come into play much this week. Why? Obvious reasons, that's why. The Ravens are a veteran team. They know how to deal with a loud crowd rooting against them and they've done it numerous times over the past few years in the playoffs. Arrowhead magic just won't matter. Sure, it'll pump up the Chiefs hearing 70,000 people cheering for them, but that's about it. It's not going to rattle the Ravens. They won at Pittsburgh this year and that place is about as close to Arrowhead as you can get.
What's going to come into play?
1) Ray freaking Rice. If the Chiefs give up more than 125 yards on the ground to Rice, or 150 total rushing yards to the Ravens, they might as well just give up because they're not going to win. The problem with Rice, however, is that he's great in the passing game as well, with over 500 rec yards on the season. Our best bet is going to be shadowing Rice all day with a linebacker in rushing situations and someone line Javier Arenas in passing situations. Make Flacco beat us. I trust our corners and safeties more than our DLine and most of our Linebackers.
2) The Ravens run defense. Yes, this is about as obvious as I can get. The Ravens are going to shut down the run game. That's a fact. So we'd better have a backup plan in place that doesn't include Cassel getting sacked or knocked down every play like he was against Oakland. Also, it's getting pretty obvious that when Thomas Jones is in the game we're going to attempt to run it up the middle. If the Chiefs do that against the Ravens, he'll end up with 8 carries for 10 yards.
3) Pressuring Flacco. If we don't get to Flacco, we aren't going to win. When the Ravens beat the Chiefs in 2009, Flacco threw for over 300 yards and 3 TDs. He had all freaking day to throw. Romeo is going to need to mix up the blitz packages and the like to keep Flacco from sitting back there and picking us apart. Tamba Hali is the main key to this. Also, if Wallace Gilberry, Glenn Dorsey and whoever else wants to get in on it, that's perfectly fine with me.
4) Chiefs Special Teams. Our special teams really hasn't done anything spectacular since Week 1. Sure, were a few decent run backs, but nothing huge. We need something huge this week. A PR ran back for a TD. A KR ran back to get us instantly into FG range. A blocked kick. Anything that gets the crowd into it more and fires the team up. Special Teams can do that. Just as long as Jon McGraw or DeMorrio Williams doesn't get called for a block in the back.
Here's an interesting fact: The Chiefs have dropped six consecutive postseason games. With a loss to the Ravens this weekend, Kansas City will set a new NFL record for most consecutive postseason losses. The Chiefs currently share the mark with six other teams.
We'd better fucking win.
- ACF
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