2012 NFL Conference Championship Discussion Thread.

[bigbluedefense]

When Talib went down that changed the defensive gameplan a bit.

They had to run a lot more Cover 2 and Flacco was hitting the underneath routes and developed a rhythm. The gameplan with Talib was overload blitzes and force them to throw to the hot.

They still did this after Talib went down and their cover 2 was getting picked apart, but without Talib defending the hot, Flacco cooked the blitz. His passer rating was 118 vs the blitz. Talib going down dramatically impacted that game.

And on the other side, Baltimore was very successful blitzing Brady. Brady was not accurate down the field all game. Baltimore did a great job defending Brady.

Baltimore deserves the win, it was a great win for them. But Talib going down definitely changed the game.