New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady says the squads are different this time around against the Baltimore Ravens in the profile.
The New England Patriots play host to the visiting Baltimore Ravens Saturday in the AFC Divisional round of the playoffs. The Patriots and Ravens have had recent postseason history with each other. New England defeated Baltimore in the 2011 AFC Championship game and Baltimore returned the favor when they won the 2012 AFC Championship.
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Don’t bring up the past history to Tom Brady however. Brady knows the teams are completely different then when they last met in the playoffs, especially considering many Ravens, such as Ray Lewis and Ed Reed have retired since then.
“Everything’s different at this point,” Brady said via WEEI.com, “We can never change anything that’s happened in the past, nor can they. You can’t bring players out of retirement, they can’t either. It’s the guys we’ve got versus the guys they’ve got, which that’s an entirely new team that we have and an entirely new team that they have. There’s some carryover, there’s some characteristics that are the same, but these teams have established their own identities. It’s going to be the Patriots’ 2014 version versus the Ravens’ 2014 version and we go from there.”
Both of the teams have completely revamped their rosters in the past two years, with the Patriots adding Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner on the back end of the defense and the Ravens adding Elvis Dumervil to their pass rush and Steve Smith as a weapon for quarterback Joe Flacco.
Anytime these two teams get together, it creates for a classic. Just because Baltimore is the underdog and the road team doesn’t mean they don’t have a chance. Anyone who knows the Ravens, knows that Baltimore turns it up another notch in the postseason.
Flacco has started in 14 games in the postseason and Saturday will be start number 15 for the former Delaware product. Flacco hasn’t thrown an interception in his last 166 postseason passes and the Ravens are an astounding 10-4 with him at quarterback in the playoffs.
Both of these teams know Saturday won’t be easy, but if they win, they both have a strong shot of returning to yet another Super Bowl.
If these teams meet again in the postseason somewhere down the line, don’t tell Tom Brady about what happened in this one.
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