To be honest, I have not paid that much attention to any of the hype of the past two weeks. Mainly because it hurt my soul to not see the Falcons playing in this game, and to watch any of ESPN or NFL Network over the past two weeks just felt like picking at a scab.

It basically is two fairly evenly matched teams facing off. I’m not sure why the spread is 4, it really should be like 2.

Baltimore Ravens (13-6) vs. San Francisco 49ers (13-4-1)
Sunday, February 3, 2013 at 6:30 pm ET on CBS

*Line: 49ers (-4)

The Falcons showed two weeks ago that the 49ers can be thrown on. Their secondary is their Achilles heel as they could not handle the likes of Julio Jones. Torrey Smith is probably not even a notch below Julio in terms of his ability to make plays downfield and Flacco is among the best vertical passers in the game. So one would think that they are ripe to be picked apart again. But I think the difference is that Baltimroe doesn’t have a Roddy White or Tony Gonzalez to also draw the 49ers attention. Well I guess Anquan Boldin is basically like Gonzo, as at this point in his career he really is just a tight end. But the combo of Jacoby Jones and Tandon Doss is a far cry from Roddy White. So I don’t see the Ravens having quite the success of the Falcons against the 49er secondary. Not unless tight ends Dennis Pitta and Ed Dickson really step up. Wait, let me rephrase that, not unless Pitta steps up. since Dickson is never really a factor. So I don’t see Flacco just chucking the ball downfield as he’s done throughout the playoffs with the same degree of success. There will be opportunities, but I don’t expect to see him throwing for nearly 400 yards as Ryan did in the NFC Championship Game.

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This is the weekend where legends are formed. Every paper and sports blog in America, and many across the globe will run stories about lesser-known players like Stephen Nicholas, Robert McClain, Rob Ninkovich, Bernard Pierce, or Alex Boone over the next two weeks should their teams win on Sunday. When your team is in the Super Bowl, suddenly every aspect of your team becomes interesting. When your team is not, no one cares. Regardless of how much success you’ve had this season up to this point, if you lose this weekend, the storyline becomes about why you weren’t good enough as opposed to being pretty darn good to make it this far in the first place. People tend to become only focused on all the things that are missing for you to taste and experience that glorification that comes from two weeks of Super Bowl coverage.

The beauty of this year’s conference championship matchups, is that you’re going to get a fairly compelling Super Bowl matchup no matter what. If it’s Patriots-49ers, then you get that Belichick vs. Harbaugh hype. You also get the connection between Kaepernick and Brady, where Kaepernick’s usurption of an injured Alex Smith’s job in his second season and coming from virtually out of nowhere is so similar to Brady’s beginning back in 2001 with Drew Bledsoe.

If it’s Patriots-Falcons, you can get the Master vs. the Student hype with Belichick and Dimitroff. You also solidify those comparisons that people like myself have made with Matt Ryan and Tom Brady.

If it’s Ravens-49ers, you obviously get the Harbaugh Bros. storyline. You get the Flacco-Kaepernick storyline that centers around the fact that 2 months ago no one would have believed they’d be squaring off in New Orleans.

If it’s Ravens-Falcons, then you get the Flacco vs. Ryan storyline that has been brewing since both emerged as dynamite rookies in 2008, and kicking off this mini-run of successful rookie quarterbacks (and yes, I’m purposefully forgetting Roethlisberger).

I picked the Broncos over the Ravens straight up last week, and should’ve gone with my heart and taken the Ravens. I have an aunt that lives in Baltimore that is a die-hard Ravens fan, so if my picks are right this week, it should make the next two weeks very interesting.

Last week, I went 3-1 both against the spread and straight picks, bringin my playoff record to 6-2 against the spread and 5-3 straight up. I picked the Ravens to go to the Super Bowl in my preseason predictions, and if they do, that will mark two years in a row where I have successfully picked the AFC representative. A trifle, but it makes me feel at least semi-competent in terms of my prognostication skills. But here are my picks:

Ravens over Patriots
Falcons over 49ers

For more detailed analysis of why I picked the teams I did, keep on reading after the jump.

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Last week I went 3-1 with my straight picks, and split against the spread. I hope to do better this week. Here are my straight picks this week:

Denver over Baltimore
San Francisco over Green Bay
Atlanta over Seattle
New England over Houston

Yep, no real surprises, taking all of the favorites. The odds are against me that all the favorites and home teams will win. But I feel like 2012 will be an aberration from previous years where home teams/favorite generally split in the wildcard and divisional rounds. Click on after the jump to read the more detailed breakdowns of my picks.

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Fresh off a regular season where I was fairly accurate with picking against the spread in ESPN’s Pigskin Pick’em, I’m going to start posting picks each week. I’ll continue to do this in 2013, but I figure the opening round of the playoffs is the perfect time to get things started. More than likely that means all my picks from this day forward will be way off-base, but when has been wrong ever deterred me?

So here are my picks for this weekend’s games:

Cincinnati over Houston
Green Bay over Minnesota
Baltimore over Indianapolis
Seattle over Washington

Keep reading for more detailed breakdowns after the jump.
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