“I’m so glad we’re going to the Super Bowl right now,” Baltimore wide receiver Torrey Smith said, “so people can get off Joe’s back.”
Flacco threw three touchdown passes in the second half, helping the Ravens reach the Super Bowl for the first time in 12 years with a 28-13 win over the New England Patriots in the AFC championship game Sunday.
He beat two-time NFL MVP Tom Brady one week after outplaying Peyton Manning, who has won the award four times, in a 38-35 double-overtime win over the Denver Broncos.
I don’t know if it is so much that Flacco outplayed Brady, but rather it was more that the Ravens as a team were better than the Pats.
I hate it when the Ravens win because of all the trash talk that follows. For all that, it seems to me we’re seeing a generational change in the NFL. Unlike the two Giants’ wins (one came down to a lucky catch; the other to a miss by Gronkowski), the Ravens beat the Patriots fair and square in all phases of the game. Here’s to a great showdown between Flacco and Kaepernick.