Baltimore and San Francisco are similarly built and evenly matched
By Terry Swayne
This Super Bowl will be a great game as the two teams are evenly matched and they are built eerily close to one another. The similarities start at the top where you have two brothers, John and Jim Harbaugh, as the coaches. They learned many of their skills from their father Jack Harbaugh, and to this day, they both send game tapes to their dad for his perspective. Obviously, their coaching philosophies will be extremely close and….they both HATE to lose.
As far as the rosters go, the teams make-up is also very similar. The defenses are strong and quick and they are both led by two #52’s, in Ray Lewis and Patrick Willis respectfully. Both offenses are good too, they are evenly matched across the board…RB-Ray Rice vs Frank Gore, WR-Anquan Boldin and Torey Smith vs Michael Crabtree and Randy Moss, and at TE-Dennis Pitta vs Vernon Davis.
In my opinion, the game will come down to two big differences between these two very good teams…. While Joe Flacco and Colin Kaepernick are both solid quarterbacks, Flacco’s five years of experience will show and I believe he will outplay Kaepernick and his nine games of NFL experience. Flacco IS an elite quarterback and he will show it on the NFL’s biggest stage…the Super Bowl.
Ultimately, like most games, it usually comes down to turnovers, with the team making the least mistakes usually winning the game; so, if the game is close….I’d much rather have rookie Justin Tucker (30 of 33 field goals made) than 14-year veteran David Akers (29 of 42 field goals made). Seems crazy picking a rookie over a seasoned veteran, but Akers has missed a league-worse 13 field goals this season. He barely beat out Billy Cunduff a few weeks ago (that’s not saying much- wouldn’t that have been weird to have him kicking against the Ravens?) but San Francisco decided to keep Akers instead.
Either way, Tucker is a better and more accurrate kicker then either one of those guys. Just ask any Ravens fan and they will tell you how important a place kicker is. This past Sunday, you saw first hand how David Akers’ missed field goal almost cost the 49’ers the game, and in two weeks it just might be the difference.