The Baltimore Ravens won their second-ever Super Bowl Championship on Sunday by defeat in the San Francisco 49ers 34-31 at the Super Dome in New Orleans. It was a landmark win for a team that stumbled into the playoffs, but had its leader return from a devastating injury to add a bit of extra emotional gas into the tank. The Ravens avoided blowing a 22-point lead, though not by much. There are plenty of reasons to say why Baltimore won't sniff the Super Bowl because of the stiff competition in the AFC, but there's also a laundry list of factors in Baltimore's favor.
In the 2013 regular season, the Ravens will face one of the toughest home schedules of any team. Although the order of the games hasn't been set yet, the official list of opponents has been released for each team. Baltimore will have five of its regular season slate against teams that made the post-season in 2012.
In addition to facing their division rival, the Cincinnati Bengals twice, Baltimore will play the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots at M&T Bank Stadium, plus they'll host the Super Bowl XLVI champion New York Giants. On the road, the Ravens will face the Houston Texans, who were a late-season collapse away from being the best team in the 2012 NFL regular season.
As the last three Super Bowl Championship teams have shown though, it's not all about record or seeding. The Ravens barely made the playoffs this year at 10-6, but got hot at the right time to win for the first time since February of 2001.
What may end up being a bigger factor against the purple and black is who they either will or might lose from the championship team. Ray Lewis retired, there are rumblings that Ed Reed might either call it quits or sign with another team, and center Matt Birk is rumored to have played his last game as well. Although neither of the latter two left to quite as much fanfare as Lewis, they were equally (if not more) important to Baltimore's success this post-season. Reed tied the NFL record for most career playoff interceptions with his pick of Colin Kaepernick yesterday, and the Ravens' offensive line prevented Justin and Aldon Smith from having much of an impact at all during the championship game. Joe Flacco frequently had plenty of time to make the throws necessary to put up just enough points for his team to win.
There's no telling what Baltimore might do in the free agent market to shore up some of its weaknesses, although the upcoming draft seems to be chock full of linebackers and secondary players that could (at least in playing potential) replace what Lewis and Reed provided after the snap.
After beating the New England Patriots to play in the Super Bowl, the Ravens finally cleared the biggest hurdle they will probably have in returning to the big game: themselves. You certainly can't guarantee an appearance in New Jersey for the Ravens next February right now, but they have as good a chance as any AFC team to play there once the Jets are done. (The Giants have a shot at being the first team ever to play in a Super Bowl in the same stadium they hold their home games. The Jets are just too easy a target.)
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