Introducing B/R’s AFC/NFC North Divisional Blogger, Andrea Hangst

Hello, everybody. I’m Andrea Hangst, and I am Bleacher Report’s new AFC North and NFC North Divisional blogger.

You may be familiar with my work around the site; I’ve been an NFL Featured Columnist since August, 2011, and have covered every team from every angle in that time.

I came to Bleacher Report by taking a very non-traditional path. I don’t have a long, professional background in writing about the NFL, but have an undying passion for the game, and for writing, and those things have combined to bring me to where I am today.

In college, I studied philosophy and political theory. That critical eye and obsession with getting to the root of things directly informs my analysis of the game. There is more to the NFL than just what we see on Sundays (and Mondays and Thursdays).

The NFL is in constant flux but yet still remains as this seemingly-immutable object; the Pittsburgh Steelers will exist next week, to be sure, but what they are as a whole will have changed over that time. While it is less complex than, say, the changeable nature of reality, the concept is the same.

While I’m not going to be getting that complicated in my work as a divisional blogger, know this: You will be getting nothing but high-quality commentary and the top analysis about the AFC and NFC North anywhere on the web.

Much like the NFL, Bleacher Report is an ever-changing world. My goal is to build a community of AFC North and NFC North fans, a place where intelligent and vigorous debates about our favorite teams can take place. I hope to be your one-stop for all the news about both divisions as well as a place you can find a unique perspective on all eight teams and a forum to let your own voices and opinions be heard.

Why AFC and NFC North? I am from Western Pennsylvania, originally, and am thus particular obsessed with all things AFC North. And I currently reside in Chicago, Illinois, in the heart of the NFC North.

It seemed a perfect fit for me to cover these two “home” divisions and to provide all eight teams with high-quality coverage from someone who truly cares about the goings on in both divisions.

So, I hope you enjoy what I bring to the table as your new NFC North and AFC North divisional blogger. Remember: The NFL season doesn’t have to end just because the games are over. There’s a ton worth discussing and learning about.

If you love the AFC North or NFC North, then I hope you love what I, and Bleacher Report, have in store for you here. And, of course, thanks for reading.

NFL Playoff Predictions: Predicting the Conference Championships Studs and Duds

In any football game, some players shine while others don’t live up to their reputations and expectations.

However, with the right to play in the Super Bowl on the line, those players who step up in this weekend’s NFL Conference Championship Games will be praised, while those who struggle when they weren’t supposed to will be blamed should their respective teams lose.

In the following slides, I detail my predictions concerning just who the studs and duds will be in the AFC and NFC Championship Games.

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NFL Playoff Schedule 2012: 4 Things to Know for Conference Championship Weekend

This weekend, the two very best teams in both the AFC and NFC battle it out for the right to play in the Super Bowl. In the NFC, the San Francisco 49ers host the New York Giants, and in the AFC, the Baltimore Ravens take on the New England Patriots.

With so many compelling storylines, so many different factors to consider and every team having a very real chance to win, there’s a lot of information to digest.

Here are four things you should know about this weekend’s games.

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Why Eli Manning No Longer Lives in Older Brother Peyton’s Shadow

New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning has been long thought to simply be Peyton’s less remarkable younger brother and little more.

Even when he led his team to a Super Bowl victory in 2007, he still wasn’t held in as high regard as his brother, who is a guaranteed future Hall of Famer and one of the all-time greats to ever play the quarterback position.

However, this season the younger Manning has proven that he’s far more than just Peyton’s little brother and has become an elite quarterback in his own right.

In 2011, Manning completed 359 of his 589 passing attempts—the most of his career—for 4,933 yards, 29 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. He’s led six game winning drives this season and engineered five fourth-quarter comebacks in 2011 and is the primary reason that the Giants have made it this far in the playoffs.

Earlier this season, Manning tried to include himself in the list of the year’s elite quarterbacks and was laughed at for doing so.

But now, having out-thrown Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers last week and knocking out the Super Bowl favorites from the playoffs, there’s little question that he deserves to be on the list of the greatest quarterbacks playing right now.

With Eli as the full-time starter, the Giants have missed the playoffs only twice, in 2009 and 2010, and the team hasn’t had a losing season with him as their quarterback.

He’s just one win away from taking the Giants to the Super Bowl for the second time in his tenure, and if they manage to not only get there but to win it, he’ll have eclipsed his older brother, who has two Super Bowl appearances of his own, but just one victory.

Eli hasn’t had the career that Peyton has. He wasn’t a heralded draft prospect, and he was a bit shaky upon being named the team’s full-time starter. He’s not flashy—though he’s part of a team in the largest media market in the nation, he was eclipsed by the constant attention given to Rodgers, Drew Brees, Tom Brady and of course, Tim Tebow this season.

However Eli is one thing, without question—a winner. It’s easy to discuss Eli without even thinking of his older brother or comparing the two. He’s clearly become worth talking about on the merit of his talents alone.

And, if Eli leads the Giants to another Super Bowl win this year, he may finally prove to his critics that he’s as valuable and talented a quarterback as his storied older brother. Eli’s not just Peyton’s brother any more; he’s a force in the NFL in his own right.

NFL Playoff Picks 2012: Why the Patriots Will Beat the Ravens

The Baltimore Ravens haven’t made it to the Super Bowl since 2000, when they defeated the New York Giants to earn their team its first and only ring.

If they are to get to the Super Bowl this year, they’ll first have to go through the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game on Sunday.

Defeating the Patriots isn’t impossible—they lost three games in the regular season, after all—but it’s going to be too much for the Ravens to handle this week.

The Ravens have one of the league’s top defenses, but it’s their deficiencies on offense that will cost them a win and a trip to the Super Bowl.

Quarterback Joe Flacco threw two first-quarter touchdown passes in the team’s divisional round win over the Houston Texans, but the offense managed to score just one field goal in the remainder of the game.

Constant pressure on Flacco kept his completion percentage just above 50 percent, and he was sacked five times and hit six more times. Further, the Texans defense was able to contain running back Ray Rice, holding him to just 60 yards on 21 carries and 20 yards on four receptions.

While it seems like the Patriots, with their weak defense that was giving up 411 yards per game on average during the regular season, won’t be able to repeat the effort put up by the Texans last week, their performance against the Denver Broncos seems to indicate they can.

The Patriots kept constant pressure on Tebow, sacking him five times and forcing him to fumble the ball. They notched 10 tackles for loss, and though they gave up 144 rushing yards, they allowed just a single touchdown.

Flacco’s two touchdowns against Houston were a result of the Ravens defense intercepting Texans quarterback T.J. Yates and giving Flacco a short field. When Flacco had the whole field to work with, he couldn’t get any significant yardage, his receivers were well covered and the pressure was unyielding.

The Ravens will need more than two touchdowns and a single field goal to beat the Patriots on Sunday. New England has scored 30 or more points in 12 games during the regular season and won’t likely be held below that this week, despite the strength of Baltimore’s defense.

New England’s offense is one of the highest-scoring, highest-yardage units in the NFL this season, with quarterback Tom Brady throwing for over 5,000 yards in the regular season. He’s got a number of weapons at his disposal, primarily tight ends Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez and wide receiver Wes Welker.

Baltimore’s defense will have to successfully bring pressure on Brady every time he takes the field. Rushing the passer is generally one of the Ravens’ strong suits, however they didn’t have a single sack on Yates last week.

If they cannot get their hands on Brady on Sunday, there’s little hope for the Ravens to keep the Patriots from scoring practically at will. The Ravens need the Patriots to score as few points as possible or else Flacco and Rice won’t have a chance to catch up.

While defense often wins championships, the Ravens defense just isn’t strong enough to give the Patriots offense a hard enough time on Sunday to prevent the team from winning. At the same time, Baltimore’s offense isn’t playing well enough to match their Patriots counterparts yard for yard, score for score.

Even Ravens safety Ed Reed knows that Flacco has been struggling and will need to do significantly more to help his team this week than he did last week against Houston. However, it doesn’t seem likely for that to happen, and thus the Ravens will fall in Foxboro on Sunday.

Super Bowl 2012: New England Patriots Defense Will Cost Them a Championship

The New England Patriots fielded the 31st-ranked pass defense in the 2011 regular season, giving up an average of 293.9 yards per game.

They allowed Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco to throw for over 300 yards for just the fifth time this season in the AFC championship game—a game in which the Pats also gave up 116 yards on the ground.

If that’s the defense that shows up in the Super Bowl against the New York Giants offense, then there’s little chance that the Patriots can win their fourth championship of the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick era.

The New York Giants field one of the top offensive units in the NFL.

Quarterback Eli Manning threw for nearly 5,000 yards in the regular season and, despite their offensive struggles in the NFC championship game against the San Francisco 49ers, he still managed to throw for 316 yards.

Clearly, the Patriots cannot lean on their offense alone to win the Super Bowl this year.

The unit struggled against the Baltimore Ravens’ conference-leading defense in the AFC championship game, with Brady throwing for just 239 yards and zero passing touchdowns while being picked off twice.

The Giants defense more than exhibited their strength during their playoff run, giving up just 39 points in the three games that brought them to the Super Bowl.

They’ve proven they are capable of stopping high-scoring offenses in a year when it seemed like having one of those high-scoring offenses would be all it takes for a team to waltz into the Super Bowl and easily win it.

However, the Patriots haven’t proven capable of stopping many teams this year, including the Giants themselves, who defeated New England in Week 9, 24-20.

The Giants managed that win by playing strong on defense, forcing four Patriots turnovers and quickly turning a third quarter fumble recovery into a 10-yard touchdown.

They’ll likely look to repeat that effort in Indianapolis, and they are fully capable of doing so.

The Patriots defense likely would prefer to put forth that kind of effort themselves, but it’s not likely unless they make some serious and effective changes in a very short while.

Giving up over 300 yards to Manning means that New England will likely find themselves in a shootout against the best fourth-quarter quarterback in the NFL this year, which is not a good position to be in if they hope to win.

Despite how it seemed throughout the regular season—with offense after offense putting up record-setting and -breaking performances—it is still defense that wins championships.

For the Patriots, the lack of a strong defense could certainly cost them a Super Bowl championship.

Ravens vs Patriots: Billy Cundiff Deserves Blame for Loss, but How Much?

Baltimore Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff missed a game-tying field goal with 11 seconds remaining in Sunday’s AFC Championship Game against the New England Patriots, costing his team the chance to win.

That’s the thing—Cundiff’s miss cost the Ravens a chance at winning the game, but were he to make it, there was still no guarantee that Baltimore would have won.

Who knows how many possessions the Ravens and Patriots would have gotten into overtime, and who knows how that iteration of the game would have played out. While these issues are now moot, it’s hard to say that Cundiff’s miss cost the Ravens a win, even though it certainly led to their loss.

Wide receiver Lee Evans’ inability to hold onto a sure touchdown on the previous play—and Patriots cornerback Sterling Moore’s successful effort to rip the ball away—cost the Ravens a win. Cundiff’s miss cost the team a chance in overtime.

It’s frustrating that the Ravens found themselves in this situation in the first place. Their offense was performing well throughout the game, with quarterback Joe Flacco finding 306 yards worth of success against the Patriots’ 31st-ranked pass defense.

Drive after drive, it seemed that the Ravens could move the ball at will, but the Patriots defense found a way to tighten up at the end, with the Ravens’ final three possessions ending with an interception, a turnover on downs and that missed field goal.

Ultimately the Ravens lost because of Cundiff’s field goal, but him making it didn’t guarantee that the Ravens would win.

There are a number of things the team as a whole could have done better in Sunday’s game that would have prevented the Ravens from being in the position to rely on Cundiff to take the game into overtime in the first place.

It was Cundiff’s fault that the Ravens lost, but the fact that him making it wouldn’t have guaranteed a Baltimore win proves that Cundiff shouldn’t solely take the blame for the team not reaching the Super Bowl this season.

Super Bowl Predictions 2012: Projecting the Game’s Biggest Stars

The New England Patriots take on the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLVI, meeting in the big game for the second time in the last four years.

Both teams boast a collection of playmakers who are all going to make a difference in the game, but some are likely to have more success than others.

In the following slides, I project the stat lines for four of the biggest stars in the game.

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