Can Ravens upend 49ers in the latest "game of the year"?
Tonight tonight, it's coming tonight! Hot damn, tonight!
The 2023 season has featured a few "games of the year." On Christmas night, the biggest game of the year so far is coming. The top-seeded Ravens face the top-seeded 49ers. No. 1 vs. No. 2 in the PFT power rankings, about which no one cares (including me).
For the 49ers, it's an opportunity to reassert themselves as the best team, by far, in football. They've beaten the Cowboys and Eagles by a combined score of 84-29. Since slipping and sliding their way into a three-game losing streak (fueled by injuries to tackle Trent Williams and receiver Deebo Samuel), the 49ers have run roughshod over the competition.
They beat the Jaguars 34-3. Buccaneers? 27-14. Seattle lost at home to the 49ers, 31-13. Philly fell on their own field, 42-19. The Seahawks lost the rematch, 28-16. Last Sunday, the 49ers trampled the Cardinals, 45-29.
When I recently said that the 49ers will "kick the shit out of the Ravens," that wasn't a shot at the Ravens. These 49ers currently will "kick the shit out of [insert name of any NFL team]." As long as they keep their nucleus of key players healthy, the 49ers should — and probably will — win a Super Bowl for the first time in 29 years, when they won their fifth in the 29th Super Bowl.
For the Ravens, it's a golden opportunity to upend the notion that everyone else is playing for second place. A win would shake things up at the top, making the Ravens the No. 1 team in the league and giving them a chance to cement the No. 1 seed in the AFC by beating the Dolphins at home on Sunday. It also might give the Ravens the confidence to alter the narrative that they're prone to an upset in the playoffs, like they were the last time they were the AFC's top seed.
And if the Ravens win, it will settle the argument of whether the MVP is 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy or 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey. If the Ravens win, the NFL MVP is quarterback Lamar Jackson.
My comments about the Ravens' chances became bulletin board material, or something, for Baltimore. It's silly to think anything said by anyone not connected to the teams would matter. But if that helps the Ravens win the game, good. I want them to win. (I don't think they will, but I want them to.)
Football is boring when one team is so much better than every other team. Right now, the 49ers are. If the Ravens can alter that perception in the last game of Week 16, it will inject a lot more drama into a postseason that, if the 49ers do tonight what I still think they will (but hope they won't), becomes less of a competition and more of a coronation.
