NEW ENGLAND quarterback Tom Brady takes off his helmet following an interception during the second half of the NFL football AFC Championship football game against the Baltimore Ravens in Foxborough, Mass., on Sunday.
Look for lots of Harbaughs in New Orleans next week. Two of them will be working the sidelines in the Super Bowl.
Oh, brother!
John Harbaugh and his Baltimore Ravens set up a family reunion in the Big Easy, shutting down the New England Patriots 28-13 Sunday in the AFC championship game.
Waiting for them will be his younger brother Jim and the San Francisco 49ers, who beat Atlanta 28-24 for the NFC title. It’s the first Super Bowl matching siblings as head coaches.
“I’d like to think that our two teams are very similar,” said John, who is a year older than Jim. “I’d like to think when you look at those two teams, you are looking at mirror images of two football teams.”
What the Ravens (13-6) are looking at is their first Super Bowl in 12 years, thanks to three touchdown passes from Joe Flacco and a defense led by Ray Lewis that made Tom Brady look downright ordinary.
It will be quite a last game for Lewis, the emotional linebacker who will retire after the matchup with the 49ers, who opened as a 5-point favorite.
“For me to come out and say that this is my last ride and for me now to be headed back to the Super Bowl, for the possibility of me possibly winning a second ring, how else do you cap off a career?” said Lewis, who had 14 tackles to give him 44 in three playoff games after missing 10 weeks with a torn left triceps.
As in the previous two playoff wins against Indianapolis and Denver, the Ravens were brilliant offensively in spots. This might be 17-year-veteran Lewis’ team, but it’s also Flacco’s — and the quarterback’s six road wins are the most in playoff history.
He has eight touchdown passes and no interceptions in this postseason.
“We’ve always believed in Joe,” Harbaugh said. “And for Joe to come out and to have this kind of a game and this kind of a stage three weeks in a row …”
Flacco, whose contract ends after the Super Bowl, is the only quarterback to win a playoff game in each of his first five seasons. He was dynamic with his arm and precise with his decision making. Looking much more the championship passer than Brady did, his scoring throws of 11 and 3 yards to Anquan Boldin and 5 to Dennis Pitta all were perfect.
“We didn’t come all the way here to play it safe and hope to win,” Flacco said. “We came here to win the AFC championship game and you have to play to win.”
The defense played as big a part, shutting out the league’s highest-scoring offense in the second half, twice picking off Brady.
Brady was 67-0 at home when leading at halftime, but this was no contest in the second half.
It also was a first for the Patriots, who hadn’t lost an AFC championship at home.
After they had avenged last year’s AFC title game loss at Gillette Stadium, many of the Ravens gathered on the field jumping, chest-bumping and whooping before several thousand fans wearing Ravens jerseys — mostly Lewis’ No. 52 — who remained in the stands.
New England (13-5) lost a home AFC title matchup for the first time in five games. The loss denied Brady and coach Bill Belichick a shot at their sixth Super Bowl. They’ve gone 3-2, losing their last two times in the big game.
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