NFL Divisional Finals Preview and Predictions: By Kyle Balfour

Football’s Coming Home…well, sort of
By Marc Rafferty

FOOTBALLS COMING HOME…well, closer to home for me than a trip to Maryland.

As a fan of the Ravens, I’ve been fortunate enough to have been able to have been at a couple of games at ‘The Bank’. The first of those was due to a loving girlfriend, who was happy to cut short a week in New York down to 4 days, before we flew to Orlando so that we could fit in 3 days in Baltimore and Philly as the Ravens were playing a Thursday night game against the team from the Factory of Sadness, the Cleveland Browns. A special mention should go to Viki who puts up with all my NFL chat, I’m sure there are many other halves who are in the exact same position. So, from us all, thank you! Haha. As the Ravens are due to play this Sunday in London, I thought I would tell the story of my first trip to Baltimore to see the Ravens play.

I love evening/night games. Whether its walking along King Street in Aberdeen and turning down onto Merkland Road East or West Ostend Street in Baltimore to see the floodlights beaming down into the stadium, showing you the way to the promised land like the Star of Bethlehem guided the 3 wise men to the birth of baby Jesus. It’s mesmerising. Fans well wrapped up from the elements with the cold air showing in their breath as they hurriedly make their way to their seats, speaking to friends and family about the game. “Was Joe Flacco going to have the season that everyone in Baltimore knew he was capable of?” (this was 2012 pre-Super Bowl) “How would the Ravens cope with not having a real Number 1 WR?” (not a great deal has changed). I felt in a drunken haze. Part of that could’ve been due to the number of beers consumed before the game, but you get the point.

We arrived in our seats about 15 minutes before the teams came out. It was decided a few days before that the Defense would come out as one and that the Offensive players would come out individually...cheers Baltimore, travel 3500 miles and we didn’t get to see Ray Lewis do the squirrel dance. Anyway, I noticed we had 2 empty seats next to us, at that point 2 Browns fans were walking up the stairs towards us. As a football/soccer fan, we are used to segregated areas. It would be a new experience in more ways than one. It turns out that the 2 young lads were absolute gents. Even offering over some of their jack Daniels they had in a hip flask after they had stopped selling beer. It was fun atmosphere sitting next to the 2 guys from Ohio. They gave as good from the abuse they got and weirdly found myself in admiration for the 2 guys with how they handled everything.

If you can remember back to 2012 it was the first game back for the referees after the strike. It must be one of the few times that the refs were cheered onto the field, as you can imagine, that goodwill didn’t last as the first bad call was met with pantomime style villainy booing. I genuinely can’t remember a thing about the game. I’ve gone back and re-watched it a couple of times since and not much is ringing bells. Looking back, I was glad I was able to see the 2012 Super Bowl Champions play. Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Tandon Doss and Michael Oher… OK too far. Just to say that I’ve seen those 2 behemoths play in the flesh is special. One has a statue but there’s no reason that Ed shouldn’t be honoured in the same way. For any Ravens fan that hasn’t been to Baltimore and is thinking about heading over, I can’t recommend it enough.

A little tip for anyone attending a game in Baltimore and are staying near the train station in Mount Vernon, don’t walk home after the game. An hour’s walk in the darkened streets of the Baltimore night isn’t fun. I’d imagine the lampposts with the blue flashing lights at the top are there for a reason haha.

We are now only a couple of days away from the Baltimore Ravens taking the field at Wembley for their game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, and I for one am so excited. It’s not a night game in London but to have my team playing 3000 miles closer makes it special. Not to be too optimistic (years of following teams that flatter to deceive will do that) but with Brandon Williams stopping the run and Terrell Suggs chasing down a Quarterback that isn’t living up to the high expectations of a 3rd pick in the draft we have to look hopeful. I hope that Flacco can take advantage of the Wide Receivers this week. We haven’t seen a lot from Wallace or Perriman so far this season. The run game has been a big help for us this year with Javorius Allen and Terrence West good for 240 yards and 2 TDs between them. The figures won’t blow you away but the fact we are able to run the ball has to be seen as a positive in helping Flacco throw the ball. Losing Marshall Yanda for the season has been a massive blow, so if Tony Bergstrom can even be half the player that Yanda is, we should be alright.

Again, the Ravens seem to be struggling with injuries. We are 2 games into the season and we now have 16 players on IR already. I can’t tell if we are just really unlucky, or there is a deeper problem. John Harbaugh went out of his way to praise the medical team and the conditioning coaches so makes me think that he thinks we are just unlucky.

I’m going to wrap this up now with a prediction. I’m going to go for Ravens to win 27-6. I wouldn’t put the mortgage on it though. To anyone going to the game, I hope you all have a good time and we get to see a great game of football. And to quote John Harbaugh “It’s worth remembering that the Ravens do guard the Tower of London.” If that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is!