John and Jim, the younger one, now have more in common than differences. They are the first brothers to be N.F.L. head coaches, and last season they said they each sent game film to their adored father, Jack, a former college coach who inspired their careers. And on Sunday, the brothers, separated in age by 15 months, grew that much closer, leading their teams — John's Baltimore Ravens and Jim's San Francisco 49ers — to conference championship victories on the road just hours apart, setting up a family feud twist on the Super Bowl in two weeks — the HarBowl.
The Ravens' 28-13 victory over the heavily favored New England Patriots was their first win in three A.F.C. championship game appearances in the last five years, and it returned them to the Super Bowl for the first time since the 2000 season, when they trounced the Giants for the franchise's only title. Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis was at the height of his career then, the defensive player of the year and the unquestioned leader of a defense-dominated team that dragged the offense behind it to the championship. Several weeks ago, Lewis announced that this season would be his last, and so his career will end on a fitting stage for one of the N.F.L.'s greatest defensive players ever, who has watched the transformation of the Ravens from a team that struggled to score touchdowns during its first championship run to one that outdueled the N.F.L.'s best offense Sunday.
Last week, Lewis, in a passing-the-torch moment, said that quarterback Joe Flacco had grown up after he had beaten Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos in a double-overtime divisional-round upset. This time, Flacco outshone Tom Brady, who was hoping to become the first quarterback to reach six Super Bowls. Brady and the Patriots have won three of them, but none since 2004. They lost their last two to the Giants, and now, with the rise of the Ravens, the Patriots' dominance over the A.F.C. has succumbed to a new challenger. It was the first time in 68 games that Brady started and the Patriots lost a game at home after leading at halftime.
To do that, Flacco led three sustained scoring drives — including one of 90 yards and another of 87 yards — with a mixture of no-huddle passing and timely runs by Ray Rice. But in a nod to the glorious defensive past, a tip of a fourth-quarter Brady pass by defensive end Pernell McPhee — launching it into the air, where it descended into the hands of linebacker Dannell Ellerbe — that effectively ended the Patriots' season.
The Ravens were leading by 15 points, but the Patriots were driving into their territory. Brady looked stunned as he walked off the field, and that was to be expected. For most of his career, those are the kinds of mistakes the Patriots usually force on their opponents. Instead, their offense sputtered throughout the night, with dropped passes, bad throws and stalled drives.
On paper, New England owned the first half, rolling up 48 plays to Baltimore's 27. But thanks to a bit of botched clock management at the end of the first half — Brady scrambled with time ticking away, then waited too long to take a timeout — the Patriots had to settle for a field goal that gave them just a 6-point lead at halftime, 13-7.
In the third quarter, the Ravens started a drive that lasted nearly four minutes, and included no third downs. The Ravens specialized in a deep strike offense this season, but this was the kind of clock-chewing drive they needed — to give the tired defense a rest, and to keep Brady off the field. But the time Brady got the ball back, the Patriots were trailing — a short Flacco pass to Dennis Pitta on the right side of the end zone did the job — and the Patriots didn't score again, allowing the Ravens to lengthen their lead in the fourth quarter and then to let the defense take over, same as it ever was.
The Patriots' final gasp, long after the stands had emptied, ended with Brady intercepted in the end zone with about a minute to play. Brady trudged off the field and, with Patriots' fans having fled to their cars, the seats closest to the field were left to the thousands of purple-clad Ravens fans who had made the trip. Ravens players sprinted onto the field jubilantly. Flacco walked along the side of the Gillette Stadium field, greeting fans. Brady was long gone into the locker room. The Patriots' dynasty of the last decade seemed, at that moment, to be in decline. The Harbaugh family, their fights long behind them, might be about to begin one of their own.
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