There are few things in sports better than December football & tonight my favorite NFL football team (the Ravens) will face-off with the big, bad Steelers on NBC's Sunday Night Football. This year, the road to the AFC North Division title runs through Baltimore, (as always) Pops & I will certainly be in attendance!
It always seems to come down to these two foes who are both 8-3 coming into the matchup, & I'm very excited to see how things play out. Both teams will likely qualify for the playoffs regardless of who wins, so it's hardly a make or break situation for either squad. But let's face it, these teams don't like each other very much & neither wants to lose.Baltimore won the 1st game earlier this season, but both teams teams were playing without 1 of it's biggest stars.
Safety Ed Reed of the Ravens was still on the Physically Unable to Perform list & Steelers quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger was still serving a 4-game suspension (stemming from sexual assault allegations earlier in the year). Most fans, pundits & other talking heads are expected to turn their attention towards tonight's contest as it will go a long way towards assessing the future climate of the AFC playoff picture.I'd love to attend a home playoff game in Charm City this post season & if the Ravens have any desire of doing the same, they'll need to take care of business early & often in the game. The last thing they'd want to see Big Ben late in the game, with the ball in his hands & with an opportunity to win it all. I know I definitely don't want to see that, so hopefully the sentiment is shared in the locker room as well.
As much as I hate to say it, the Ravens COMPLETELY choked in last night's 13-10 loss to the Steelers as it came down to a late Pittsburgh drive as I'd feared might be the case.
ReplyDeleteIt was however a hard hitting affair as usual & I can't possibly see how this wouldn't be considered the NFL's nastiest rivalry at the moment. Hopefully the Ravens will get another shot at Pittsburgh in the playoffs...