Why the Patriots will win the Super Bowl (I think)

Yes I am a Patriots fan and obviously will be rooting for them this week when they host Baltimore in the AFC Championship for the second straight year.  But Bill Belichick's team really didn't deserve to win last year and got lucky at the end of the 2012 AFC Championship.  This year I am confident in my Pats, that not only will they find a way to beat a Baltimore team that's pretty darn good and oh by the way, the team I picked to win the Super Bowl before the season began, but also take home the Lombardi trophy two weeks later.

I obviously wouldn't be shocked if the Ravens pulled it out and got to the Super Bowl one more time for the retiring Ray Lewis.  Joe Flacco was simply incredible in getting Baltimore back in the game late Saturday in the Divisional Round and that 70 yarder was fantastic!  He played better than Tom Brady in last year's AFC Championship as well, but he and the Ravens still didn't win the game.

Sorry, it's tangent time.  Jim Boeheim is on Sportscenter this morning.  At first I was going to rant on why he's talking to them when he barely speaks to the Syracuse media, but actually he's giving the same responses to Hannah Storm that he gives to all of us.  We'll see if she mentions James Southerland, who was deemed ineligible by the school prior to this past Saturday's game against Vanilla-Nova.  Wow, BOEHEIM mentioned Southerland!!  Apparently there's a chance he'll be back this season and Boeheim says he's been working really hard.  Sorry, I just rolled my eyes, not because I don't believe how hard Southerland works, just that if he's worked so hard, how did he become ineligible?  The Orange are going to Louisville on Saturday and the Cardinals should be the #1 ranked team, since they were #3 last week, and both #1 Duke and #2 Michigan lost.  JB says there's 10-15 teams that have a chance to win it all this year and 5-6 more that are good enough to make the Final Four.

Anyway, back to the Patriots.  Their defense has been their big issue the last few years, pretty much since they lost to the Giants in Super Bowl XLII.  But that unit has improved a lot in the past year and they have some big play potential, as shown against Houston when Rob Ninkovich made that Tecmo Super Bowl-style leaping interception.  But even more important is how good their running game has become, with Stevan Ridley, Danny Woodhead and Shane Vereen stepping up.  Well, Woodhead got hurt yesterday, so Vereen broke out with three total touchdowns and picked up over 120 total yards.  Ridley was one of the mainstays for my 12-2 fantasy team this year, the Rick Rollers!  Hmmm, that gives me an idea: Check it this out if you have a chance!  It's the perfect mix of the RR, Family Guy and Back to the Future!

New England did lose uber-Tight End Rob Gronkowski to another injury against the Texans, but they've still got Aaron Hernandez, another of my fantasy guys.  (Though after a great regular season, I lost to Jill Reale in the playoff semis!  Had to settle for third place, d'oh!)  Tommy Terrific has plenty of weapons with which to choose, so that shouldn't be a problem.  I expect a close game against Baltimore, though, as the Pats defense would have to make some pretty big plays to go up as big as they did against Houston.

If they do take care of business in another AFC Championship game, the Pats would get the winner of San Fransisco and Atlanta, who face off in the NFC Championship game.  I'd love to see the Falcons personally, with former Boston College QB Matt Ryan and future Hall of Fame TE Tony Gonzalez.  But I also think they're a better matchup for the New England than the 49ers, who have a very tough defense, to go along with quite the prolific offense, with Colin Kaepernick officially arriving on the playoff scene.  (Did you see what he did to Green Bay?  He set a new QB playoff record with 181 rushing yards, and also passed for 263 more, scoring four total touchdowns!)  Even so, a matchup between the Patriots and 49ers could be very intriguing as well, with both Bill Belichick and Jim Harbaugh guaranteed to throw some interesting plays in there, just to throw the other one off.  But I would give the advantage to Belichick, who's been there plenty of times before.

So yes, I'm a biased Patriots fan, but I'm just feeling it.  New England is going to win the Super Bowl to solidify the Hall of Fame careers of Brady and Belichick... At least that's what I think is going to happen.  Besides, the Patriots currently have the longest title drought of any of Boston's pro sports teams.  If they win again, then the world will make sense again... because then the Red Sox will be the ones with the longest Boston drought.