Patriots Get Test At Home Vs. Ravens

NFL News - September 29th, 2009 - Written by John

Ravens at Patriots -- We've seen New England come back against Buffalo, then lay an egg in Giants Stadium. Then we saw them rebound to pick apart one of the good emerging teams in the NFL when they ran away from Atlanta last week. What we haven't seen is this: the Patriots face-to-face with one of the NFL's dominant teams in a chance to see where they really stand.

Vegas appears to believe their loss to the Jets in Week Two was just a visage and favors New England at home, where they've only lost three times in the last two years. BetUS has the Patriots giving up two points to the Ravens, with an over/under of 44 1/2.

It is somewhat of a surprising line despite New England's track record at Foxboro. The Ravens have clearly emerged as the team to beat in the AFC after Pittsburgh dropped their last two games. They have the league's no. 7-ranked defense and their offense is no. 2.

Joe Flacco has been one of the best quarterbacks in the league after being nursed by the coaching staff last year. He threw for a career-high 342 yards last week and has 821 overall. Willis McGahee is the team's no. 2 back but has an NFL-high six touchdowns.

The Patriots will likely return Wes Welker to the lineup after missing two straight weeks with a knee injury. He will be a welcome addition to a passing attack that has been up-and-down at best this year. Tom Brady hasn't been able to get the ball into Randy Moss' hands enough this year and hasn't connected with speedster Joey Galloway like New England hoped he would. Julian Edelman has filled in for Welker and has been effective so far. But he dropped a couple of key balls against the Jets and doesn't quite showcase the speed and instincts of Welker.

New England has won the last two meetings against Baltimore, including a dramatic win last year, where Matt Cassel drove his team 73 yards in the waining minutes with two fourth-down conversions. One of those came via penalty, the other was actually prevented by the Ravens defense, but a timeout was called before the stop and the Patriots picked it up the next play.

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