Your thoughts.

If they blitz yes. If they send 4, most likely not nearly enough. Honestly, I don't care as much about sacks as some. I just want to see our front 7 move flacco out of the pocket. He becomes less effective throwing the deep ball. 

Flush him out to his left. His throwing % to his backside is almost 20 percentage points lower.

Exactly...just get him out of the pocket going left and good things will happen. Would like to see the pats overload the right and make flacco go left

If they can handle rice nd pierce they can throw in some blitz packages. 

I hope they do get t him...they need to put some pressure on him.  Even under a little durress, the stupid Flacco comes out.  If they're not getting to him, he can certainly be deadly.  I think Deaderick and Francis will make a couple of big plays today....

If Wilfork can play like he did last week...the week against the Jets...and the regular season game against the Texans...we win this game and the Super Bowl. When he can play like that the whole defense has an easier job and QB's can't do what they want.

No, they won't.  Watch the past two Pats' playoff games...our front four are being held on about 90% of the plays, and a lot of those are in front of the refs.  Only one hold called last game.  Hope I eat these words, but I'm willing to bet they don't call a Ravens hold at all this game. 

Conspiracy or not, the refs and NFL will protect Flacco if it means getting the Harbaughs to the SB.  This will sound odd, but if SF wins the afternoon game, Pats chances of getting an unbiased game are slim.  That's why they really do need to win this one by more than 1 score.

I want to see some added pressure on Flacco today!  They need to not allow Flacco to set up to throw the deep ball.  Of course good downfield coverage will help give the D more time to pressure Flacco as he will have to hold the ball a bit longer but as we have seen in the past Flacco tends to just throw the ball up hoping for the Wr to make a play on the ball or looking for a PI call.

But the Patriots D line seems to play different then most D lines.  The Patriots D line tends to have Wilfork or others drop back into a short pass protection which allows less pressure on the QB and don't get a ton of sacks.  So it will be very interesting to see what they do today.

IF BB makes it a priority in the game plan they will.

If NE can get a lead they will find it easier. IF Baltimore is operating with an open playbook it might be more difficult. 

I agree with the posters whe think he should be flushed and moving to his left. Statistics show Flacco does not throw well moving to his left.

In response to soups' comment:

I can see them not calling holding for both sides and allowing a wide open passing game but they cannot be too one sided in this day and age too much outside scrutiny. There is a bit of a penalty to NE if they do not call holding at all because NE can already protect pretty well without it and Baltimore struggles.

NE is good enough to overcome whatever the refs brew up.

Also, close game 4th quarter even biased refs will not purposefully decide the game with a bad call. Not to say there won't be one, but in this situation it will be a simple mistake, not a due to any desire to change the game. This is the AFC chanmpionship after all, the NFL does not want any game overshadowed by bad officiating.

In response to mthurl's comment:

Deadrick and Ninkovich are going to see a ton of one-on-one, they have to beat that. Vince and Chandler will see the bulk of the pass protection gameplan, I doubt Birk can hold Vince though. 

i wonder if cunnigham will get back out there today. nink really had very few presures last week, and chandler jones looks like he lost his burst before this ankle injury, so i dont expect a lot from him. i always thought scott looked good in his limited plays this year but he looked a step slow last week since his injury, and he was still on the injury report last week. francis was the only one who looked like he had fresh legs, but cunningham should too. i was really surprised he didnt play at all last week.

I hope so. It's going to be key to them winning this game.

I am more confident about the offense working fine today. I believe the SFF game was when they finally broke through and discovered that they are capable of overcoming a good QB-pressuring D, and how to do that.

The question today is whether the revamped D is capable of slowing down BAL's O. It all starts with the front 7.

Id say they BETTER, or its trouble. Getting to him early would be huge too. The Pats have the habit of taking it easy on QB's early in the game. Need to crush him right away like they did Sanchez, so he will start doubting himself and make mistakes. Do that, and this game will be a blowout.

they need to.. the ravens offensive line is good, better than earlier in the season too. the patriots will need to blitz to get pressure imo