{"id":21165,"date":"2012-01-20T01:08:41","date_gmt":"2012-01-20T06:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=21165"},"modified":"2012-01-20T01:11:08","modified_gmt":"2012-01-20T06:11:08","slug":"afc-championship-game-picks-patriots-host-ravens-at-gillette-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/afc-championship-game-picks-patriots-host-ravens-at-gillette-stadium-21165\/","title":{"rendered":"AFC Championship Game Picks: Patriots host Ravens at Gillette Stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baltimore Ravens at New England Patriots
\nSunday, 1\/22\/12, 3:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 CBS
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 New England -9
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 New England -7
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 50.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 50
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Patriots
New England QB Tom Brady is 4-1 lifetime against the Ravens as he continues his quest for a 4th Super Bowl title.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The New England Patriots have bad memories of their last home playoff loss to the Baltimore Ravens two years ago.\u00a0 That setback has helped motivate the top-seeded Patriots (14-3) this postseason as they attempt to win their fourth Super Bowl title.\u00a0 But first, they will need to knock off the second-seeded Ravens (13-4) in Sunday\u2019s AFC Championship Game.<\/p>\n

Baltimore routed New England 33-14 in the team\u2019s last playoff appearance at Gillette Stadium, scoring two touchdowns within the first five minutes of the game, starting with an 83-yard dash by running back Ray Rice on the team\u2019s first offensive play.\u00a0 Rice rushed for 159 yards on 22 carries and scored twice against the Patriots (-7, O\/U 50) that day, and he totaled a career-high 1,364 yards on the ground this season with 15 touchdowns.<\/p>\n

The Ravens are 12-0 this year when Rice carries the ball at least 18 times, including last Sunday\u2019s 20-13 home win over Houston in the divisional round.\u00a0 He had 60 yards on 21 carries against the Texans, failing to break a big one with a long run of just nine yards.\u00a0 But Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco also struggled throwing the ball, completing 13 of 27 passes for 176 yards.\u00a0 Flacco\u2019s two touchdown passes both came on short drives following Houston turnovers.<\/p>\n

If Rice and Flacco do not play better offensively against New England, the Ravens likely will not be heading to Indianapolis two weeks from now.\u00a0 Their defense carried them against the Texans and was clearly the difference in facing rookie QB T.J. Yates, who threw three interceptions.<\/p>\n

The Patriots are hoping to get off to a fast start and put pressure on Baltimore\u2019s offense, much like they did in a 45-10 blowout victory over Denver at home last Saturday.\u00a0 They scored their first touchdown against the Broncos within the first two minutes of the game and followed with another less than seven minutes later for a quick 14-0 lead.<\/p>\n

While Denver finally got on the board with a touchdown early in the second quarter, New England proceeded to erupt for 28 unanswered points en route to the easy win.\u00a0 Patriots QB Tom Brady looked like a man on a mission, tying an NFL playoff record with six touchdown passes.\u00a0 Brady picked up his first home win in the postseason since 2008, which is the last time his team went on to the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n

The fourth-ranked pass defense of the Ravens will get a serious test here after giving up an average of just 196.3 yards per game during the regular season.\u00a0 All-Pro safety Ed Reed suffered an ankle injury at the end of last week\u2019s win and could have trouble keeping up with New England tight ends Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez, both of whom were in college the last time the teams met in the postseason.<\/p>\n

The Patriots are riding a nine-game winning streak, going 6-3 against the spread during that stretch with the OVER cashing in the last seven.\u00a0 Baltimore has won seven of eight but has failed to cover four of five.\u00a0 Brady is 4-1 lifetime against the Ravens, and the OVER is 3-1 in the past four meetings.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NFL handicappers<\/a> at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baltimore Ravens at New England Patriots Sunday, 1\/22\/12, 3:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 CBS Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 New England -9 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 New England -7 Opening Total:\u00a0 50.5 Current Total:\u00a0 50 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker The New England Patriots have bad memories of their last home playoff loss to the Baltimore Ravens two years ago.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":3955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[6313,6364,608,396,125,1772,1922,6365,6366,604,1069,398],"class_list":["post-21165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-afc-betting","tag-afc-championship-game","tag-baltimore-ravens","tag-joe-flacco","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-nfl-betting","tag-nfl-picks","tag-nfl-playoff-betting","tag-nfl-playoff-picks","tag-nfl-playoffs","tag-ray-rice","tag-tom-brady"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21165"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21167,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21165\/revisions\/21167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}