The New England Patriots led the Baltimore Ravens 13-7 at halftime but were unable to hold the lead, giving up three second-half touchdowns (all passing TD's for Joe Flacco) in a 28-13 loss.
The Patriots and Ravens alternated small leads throughout the opening half, but a poor performance by Tom Brady, a lacking secondary depleted by injuries and another injury to Stevan Ridley doomed the Patriots to a historic loss; the defeat was the first in Brady's career that the team led at halftime and lost, with 67 previous victories.
New England ran more plays, gained more yardage and had a higher yards-per-play average in the loss, with Brady throwing for 320 yards. The Pats also gained over 100 rushing yards as a team and had 20 fewer penalty yards, but none of that was enough to stop Flacco's best playoff performance streak. Flacco matched last week's high of three touchdown passes and again threw no interceptions, giving him 8 TD's and no picks in this year's post-season so far. He had his third straight game with a quarterback rating of more than 100 in the Baltimore win.
Brady has struggled throughout his playoff career against the Ravens, throwing one touchdown pass and two interceptions in Sunday's game. In total, he has 3 TD's and 7 interceptions between the 2009, 2012 and 2013 playoff games against Baltimore. Two of his four lowest completion percentage games and three of his lowest quarterback rating games have been against them. The 2009 playoff loss was his worst pass yardage game in five years, the other Ravens-Pats blowout. (Baltimore won 33-14 in Foxboro in the wild card round.)
Four of the last six Patriots' playoff losses have been to a Super Bowl participant (including two Super Bowl losses to the New York Giants).
Injuries certainly weren't the only flaw in New England's game play, but they may have played a big factor, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Ridley was lost, having already led the team in rushing that day, but both Aqib Talib and Patrick Chung left the game hurt, exposing the lack of secondary depth on the team.
Bernard Pollard-- who has injured three Patriots' players in past games-- gave Ridley a helmet-to-helmet hit, knocking him unconscious. The hit forced a fumble recovered by the Ravens, and Ridley didn't return to the game. Pollard ended Tom Brady's season in 2008 (though he later apologized, claiming the hit was accidental), was a part of the play Wes Welker tore his ACL on in 2009 and also sprained Rob Gronkowski's ankle on a play in last season's AFC Championship.
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