I don’t think any other Ravens blogger experienced Baltimore’s 33-14 beat down on the New England Patriots. While the actual game was taking place, I was sitting in the Towson Center with a few thousand of my closet friends preparing to graduate.

Knowing that I couldn’t ignore the biggest game of the year, I was receiving text messages from everyone, watching the ESPN Scorecenter on my iPhone, and of course tapping that guy in front of me with the earbud in his ear about what was taking place.

Regardless of how I enjoyed the game, here are my thoughts of the outcome after finally watching it.

  • The small players stepped up – One of my favorite texts from a friend read, “Frank Walker just laid the wood on a receiver.” Frank Walker? Really? But it wasn’t just walker that stepped up, Domonique Foxworth, Chris Carr, Terrell Suggs, and Willis McGahee all stepped up.
  • This was the defense of old – People that were calling for Greg Mattison‘s job just weren’t patient enough. Give great credit to Mattison and the entire coaching staff for his game plan against a powerful New England offense. They pressured Tom Brady all day and masked their bad secondary with an all around strong pressure upfront.
  • I’m proud to be from Baltimore – I read an awesome article on Boston.com about Ravens fans venturing north for the game. While Camden Yards has been noted as Fenway Park South, Albert Breer wrote that Foxboro was M&T Bank Stadium North. The Ravens fans shouted “O” loudly during the national anthem. I can’t wait til the Red Sox fans come to Camden Yards and I start the “Let’s go Patriots” chant while they start the stupid “Let’s go Red Sox” chant.
  • Rice was big, Flacco wasn’t – The Ravens ran the ball down the Pats throat. We all thought New England’s defense was soft, but not this soft. An 83 yard touchdown run by Ray Rice was just the beginning of his day. He finished with 159 yards and 2 touchdowns. Joe Flacco had just four completions for 34 yards and a pick. But it didn’t matter, as long as he was able to avoid too many costly turnovers.

I loved watching Kelley Washington wave good bye to the fans in New England. All around it was one hell of a ride.