NFL: Ravens/49ers Need to Learn from the Past

There are no two teams hotter than the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens but they need to be careful not to get caught up in the hype. After all there have been teams to make this kind of run in the regular season each season without the Super Bowl. We can start with last year’s Rams who fell short to the New England Patriots.

Then there’s last year’s Kansas City Chiefs that lost in the playoffs. Remember the Carolina Panthers who were the most fun team to watch a couple years back, how was their Super Bowl parade? And neither team needs to forget the Harbaugh-Bowl of Super Bowl XLVII where the 49ers met the Ravens and were shut down. Every year there are teams that end up being “the hottest team in the league.”, only to fall short of expectations and both teams need to not let history repeat itself.

Sunday’s matchup between the two might be a precursor of what’s to come. The Niners are the hottest team in the NFC and the Ravens in the AFC and they’ll play Sunday at 1pm. Both have taken the league by storm this year under the strength of their young quarterbacks. Jimmy Garoppolo is the savior after the Colin Kaepernick debacle. Baltimore parting ways with their former Super Bowl champion and now run with Lamar Jackson. Two quarterbacks who fans have had their doubts about are running the two best teams in the NFL right now.

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If either want to hold up that Lombardi Trophy at the end of the season, now is the time to shut out all the noise. Take a page out of the book of the Philadelphia Eagles a few years ago who went into every game as underdogs. Thinking too far ahead about being the team to beat will make teams sloppy. The carelessness that you can’t lose turns into mistakes that cost you the game. With the powerhouse Patriots stumbling, and no other teams really running away like the Ravens/49ers the time to strike for the two is now. With the ever changing landscape in the NFL it’s hard to have a consistently competitive team. If this is the year they make a run at the Super Bowl, they might not get it again for a few years out. Blocking out the hype is a must going into the playoffs. Can Baltimore or San Francisco be this year’s champs? Maybe, but they won’t do it if they don’t learn from prior year’s failing teams. Hype doesn’t hoist the trophy, discipline does.