The San Francisco 49ers have had arguably the best defense in the NFL over the past two seasons, but Baltimore Ravens tight end Ed Dickson is not overly concerned about it. The Niners ranked second in the NFL with just 17.1 points per game allowed during the regular season, but they allowed 31 to the Green Bay Packers and then 24 to the Atlanta Falcons in the playoffs. Those numbers have Dickson chomping at the bit.
“We’ve seen the success that Atlanta had,” Dickson said Tuesday according to CSNBayArea.com. “We’re not going to be naïve. I’m sure they’ve made corrections. In the end, it’s all about us and the things that we do well with running the football and passing the ball, just being a balanced offense.
“We’ve seen a lot of things on film we can exploit, and we’ll go after those things.”
Common sense would tell you that the Super Bowl is unlikely to turn into a shootout, as the Ravens and Niners have two of the more physical defenses in the league. Dickson is right that San Francisco’s defense was exploited in its first two playoff games, but Baltimore doesn’t have players like Aaron Rodgers, Jordy Nelson, Roddy White and Julio Jones. If the Ravens are forced to throw the ball a lot, they’ll be doing so against a much tougher defense than the one they lit up in New England. That’s not to say it can’t be done, but Joe Flacco would greatly benefit from his team getting Ray Rice going early and often on Sunday.
Helmet smack to Pro Football Talk
