Things I Noticed: Conference Championship

We're down to the final four teams, battling it out for the right to earn a trip to the Super Bowl.  The top teams in each conference face off to crown a champion.

Here are some things I noticed this week:

San Francisco at Atlanta

• Despite being the home team, Atlanta entered the game as 4 point underdogs.  Is that a lack of respect for the NFC's top seed or an overreaction to recent performance?  The 49ers have looked strong all year, particularly since Colin Kaepernick took over, most recently by demolishing the Packers.  Atlanta may have the best record, but they've had some shaky victories, including last week when they nearly blew a late lead to Seattle.
• Atlanta is terrible at blowing teams out.  Their offense looked dominant early on as they posted a 17-0 lead in the first half, but just like last week, they struggled to put their opponent away.  The Niners fought back, outscoring the Falcons 28-7 the rest of the way.
• The 49ers set a record for the biggest comeback ever in an NFC title game by rallying from down 17.
• Unlike the Packers last week, Atlanta was prepared to contain Kaepernick in the pocket.  They did let him get outside for a 23 yard gain, but that was his only positive rushing attempt of the game.  The rest he would have to do with his arm.
• Although Kaepernick may not have produced much with his legs, the threat of having him run opened up opportunities for his team.  The Falcons were so worried about stuffing Kaepernick near the goal line that Frank Gore was able to stroll into the end zone untouched on both of his TDs.
• Vernon Davis has seemed like a forgotten man ever since Kaepernick took over the offense, as he failed to record more than 2 catches or 27 yards in any of the Niners last 6 regular season games.  It seems his QB has finally noticed him.  Davis picked up where he left off last postseason with another big playoff performance (5 catches, 106 yards, 1 TD) to lead the Niners in receiving.
• Matt Ryan set a franchise record for passing yards in a playoff game (396), but most of it came in the first half when the Falcons got out to an early lead.  Without a reliable running game, the Falcons had to rely on Ryan's arm to move the chains and eat up the clock, but he couldn't get within striking distance in the second half. 
• While the Niners weren't able to capitalize with scoring drives off of either of Ryan's second half turnovers, his INT and fumble did halt promising drives for the Falcons and prevented them from adding to their lead.
• Atlanta had an opportunity to reclaim momentum when they came up with a huge stop by stripping Michael Crabtree of the ball at the Falcons one yard line.  The turnover prevented a score, but backed up against their own goal line, the Falcons were unable to create much room with their running game and settled for a punt after a three and out.  All that recovered fumble ended up doing was delaying their fate, as the Niners would go back down the field again for the game winning score on the following drive.
• Ryan did lead one last promising drive late in the 4th quarter, marching the Falcons all the way down to the Niners 10 yard line before turning the ball over on downs with a 4th down incompletion.
• Julio Jones had an outstanding season, but his home/road splits were perplexing.  He caught 48 passes for 751 yards and 8 TDS on the road, but only 31 passes for 447 yards and 2 TDs at home.  He was also relatively quiet in last week's home win over Seattle, but this week he proved himself more than capable of putting up big numbers inside the Georgia Dome.  Jones hauled in 11 catches for 182 yards and 2 TDs.

• Likely playing in the final game of his career, Tony Gonzalez looked like he's still capable of playing a few more years.  He added 8 catches for 78 yards and 1 TD to his resume.  If this is really it for the 35 year old, he'll finish not only as the best receiving tight end in history, but one of the game's greatest overall receivers.  He trails only Jerry Rice on the all-time list of receptions with 1,242.
• San Francisco wins 28-24, advancing to the Super Bowl.  Joe Montana won 4 Super Bowls and Steve Young won another.  Now it's up to Kaepernick to add one more so the Niners can join the Pittsburgh Steelers as the only franchises with 6 Super Bowl titles.

Baltimore at New England

• New England entered the game 4-0 at home in Conference Championship games.  Tom Brady had never lost a home game after leading at half time.  The Patriots were favored by 8 points.  None of that mattered in the end.  Not after a miserable performance that left the Patriots looking over matched and unprepared.  Those aren't characteristics typically used to describe Patriot teams in the Bill Belichick era, but it can easily describe what was witnessed in this game.

• The Patriots led 13-7 at halftime, thanks to a 1 yard TD pass from Brady to Wes Welker (8 catches, 117 yards).  Yet they have only themselves to blame for not coming away with more before halftime.  A crucial clock management blunder left them settling for a field goal as time expired to end the second quarter.  The Patriots still held a time out when Brady scrambled for a useless three yards.  He would have been better off throwing the ball away to preserve the clock, but at the very least, calling the time out would have left them enough time to run another couple plays before sending out the kicking team if they weren't able to get in the end zone.  Instead, Brady tried to rush the team to the line to run another play, but couldn't get the offense set in time.  Belichick was forced to call the time out from the sidelines with 4 seconds remaining and the Patriots had to settle for three points without giving themselves a shot at 7.  Maybe they wouldn't have gotten the TD anyway, but mismanaging the clock so that you don't even give yourself the chance for it is inexcusable.  Those lost potential points ended up being crucial in the end.
• Baltimore dominated the second half, but New England was still in position to come back even after Anquan Boldin scored the first of his two TDs to put the Ravens up by 8.  The Patriots marched down the field looking to tie, but momentum swung against them in crippling fashion when Bernard Pollard leveled Stevan Ridley with a vicious hit that knocked the second year running back out.  Hard to blame Ridley for letting go of the ball considering he was likely unconscious at the time.  It looked like Ridley's knee was down prior to the ball coming loose, but officials didn't see enough on replay to overturn it.  Ridley looked to be actually sitting on the ground as the ball came out.  If there was any air between the grass and his ass when the ball popped out, you'd be hard pressed to have slipped a piece a paper under him - it was that close.  Given the angle his left leg was twisted as he went to the ground, it'd be impossible for his knee to not have been down, but there was no camera angle that gave a clear look at that knee.
• Add another victim to the list for Patriot killer Bernard Pollard.  This is now the 4th time Pollard has crushed the Patriots playoff hopes by inflicting a devastating injury to a key player.  In 2008 he ruined the season before it ever started by taking out Brady's knee in Week 1.  In 2009, Welker shredded his knee attempting to avoid a hit by Pollard, knocking him out for the postseason and leaving the Pats without one of their best offensive weapons for an eventual postseason let down.  Last year Rob Gronkowski injured his ankle after being taken down by Pollard.  Gronk was hobbled the rest of the way and limped through the Super Bowl loss.  Now he's taken out Ridley, leaving him with a likely concussion that he never returned to the game from.
• Following the fumble, the Ravens capitalized by adding another TD pass to Boldin to essentially put the game away.
• The much maligned Patriots secondary turned things around in the second half of the season following the trade for Aqib Talib.  They gave up more big plays than any team in the league through the first half of the season, but once Talib settled into his role as the team's top corner, the Patriots became one of the best at preventing those big plays.  Talib is the only corner on this roster capable of matching up against the elite receivers in the league, allowing the defense to let Talib worry about the opponent's top receiver while the rest of the defense worries about everyone else.  This opened up more opportunities to use man coverage and blitzes, schemes they rarely used early in the season.  Talib's importance to this defense can't be understated, given that the Ravens comeback coincided with Talib exiting with a thigh injury.  The Ravens struggled to produce much on offense in the first half, but once Talib was knocked out of the game mid-way through the second quarter, the Ravens finally got themselves on the board.  The Pats struggled to adjust without Talib in the second half, which allowed Joe Flacco to shred the flailing secondary.

• Speaking of Flacco (240 yards, 3 TDs), not only did he out duel Brady in this game, but he's put together an impressive postseason resume in his career.  He's now 8-4 in his career in the postseason, dating back to his rookie year in 2008.  Meanwhile, Brady is only 3-4 in the postseason since 2008.  That of course was the year Brady had his knee torn apart by Pollard and the Patriots missed the playoffs for only the second time in Brady's career.  He's won an MVP and had a 5,000 yard season since then, but when it comes to the playoffs, Brady just hasn't been the same since that devastating knee injury.
• New England came up short on it's quest for a 6th Super Bowl appearance in the Brady/Belichick era.  Now the team faces several questions that could impact their ability to make another run before this era inevitably comes to an end.  Will the defense continue to improve, even if Talib doesn't re-sign?  Will they find a way to bring back Welker, either with a new contract or an expensive franchise tag?  Can Gronk make it through a season healthy?  At what point will Brady start to decline from playing at an elite level?  Time is running out in his career to get him another ring and they may have just blown the best chance they had left.
• Baltimore wins 28-13 to postpone the Ray Lewis retirement party for a couple more weeks.  After both road teams improbably won in the Conference Championship games, the Ravens now move on to the Super Bowl to face the 49ers.  If it wasn't bad enough we had to endure two more weeks of people praising Lewis, now we have to listen to two straight weeks hyping up Harbaugh Bowl.  At least it will be amusing to hear how many times people mix up the brothers, Jim (Niners) and John (Ravens).  Plus it gives us more time to make Ray Lewis murder jokes.  I'll miss those once he's gone.  See, there's still a silver lining here!  Maybe I'll be able to stomach watching the Super Bowl after all.