Who's Going To Indy?

Gabe got his late Christmas present last week when his Giants, much like they did in 2007, pulled off the upset in Lambeau against my Packers. It was one of those things I saw coming almost immediately after Randall Cobb nearly fumbled away the kickoff on Green Bay's opening drive and it's a loss which, as I will write later this week, may actually make this Packers team better in the long run. Still, when you turn the ball over five times, you miss open guys on multiple occasions, and your receivers have a case of the drops, you aren't beating the San Francisco Giants, let alone the New York Giants.

Regardless, Gabe's moment in the sun could be short-lived if Big Blue doesn't handle business at The New Candlestick tonight so here is our take on today's Championship games.

LAST WEEK

Dave: 2-2

Gabe: 2-2

POSTSEASON

Gabe: 5-3

Dave: 3-5

Ravens (+7) at Patriots

Dave: Patriots - I'm picking the lesser of two evils here because I can do without Ravens fans running their mouth for the next two weeks(Pats fans are a little easier to hush because you can always fire back "18-1" at them). Baltimore has had New England's number in recent years, most notably the last time these two met in the playoffs in 2008 when Baltimore smacked New England in the mouth in Foxboro. If the Ravens are smart, they replicate that same formula by keeping the ball out of Joe Flacco's hands, letting Ray Rice carry the offense and have T-Sizzle and company tee off on Tom Brady.

The difference this time around is that the Patriots' offense no longer centers around going deep to Randy Moss and instead utilizes all-world tight ends Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. Baltimore might be able to silence one, but not both, mainly because the pass rush is non-existent beyond Terrell Suggs. As we saw with Green Bay last week, if your pass rush is a one man show and that one man show can't apply pressure, you're going to get picked apart. Baltimore's only hope is getting out to an early lead and forcing Brady to make mistakes. If Joe Flacco has to keep up with Tom Brady this time around, you might as well punch New England's ticket to Indy by halftime. Flacco might not have killed the Ravens last week against Baltimore, but he was still dreadful. With all the turnovers Baltimore forced against Houston, the Texans shouldn't have still been in that game at the end. You can thank Flacco for that. I've said it repeatedly that Baltimore's chances of hoisting the Lombardi are contingent on Flacco being better than a sieve at QB. So far, they've benefited from drawing a 5th-round rookie in their first playoff game this season. Tom Brady's no rookie and he can smell another Super Bowl. I think Baltimore keeps New England's scoring output in the high-20's but Flacco comes up short in the end. Pats by 9.

Gabe: Patriots - I'm taking the Pats, mostly because I'd rather see my Giants play them in the Super Bowl.

Giants (+2) at Niners

Dave: Giants - As great as San Francisco's win over New Orleans last week was, a couple things should be mentioned: 1. SF blew a 17-0 lead. 2. They forced five Saints turnovers and still needed a miraculous final drive to beat the Saints by 4. 3. The Giants' D is a lot better than the Saints' D. Granted, the Niners' D is much better than Green Bay's and LB's Aldon Smith and Patrick Willis are going to make things much more difficult than Clay Matthews and company did last week. Still, much like Flacco vs. NE today, the Niners' chances of advancing are going to come down once again to Alex Smith being able to go score-for-score with another prolific QB in Eli Manning. That's going to be tough to do with this Giants' pass rush in Smith's face all game. The Packers proved you can run on the Giants(but somehow felt the need to not do so as often as they should have) so a heavy dose of Frank Gore might keep SF in this one but if San Fran's recipe for success in this postseason is hoping their opponent turns the ball over five times then plays soft D on the final drive of the game, then they are S.O.L.. They should have blew that game against New Orleans. Lightning doesn't strike the same place twice. Giants win by 10 and I get two weeks of unbearable Gabe texts.

Gabe: Giants - Because I have to.