Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.
If the Patriots expect to beat the Ravens in Sunday’s AFC Championship game, they are going to have to bottle up one of their ghosts of playoff failures past: running back Ray Rice.
The Patriots learned the lesson well in the 2009 wild-card game when Rice ran for 159 yards and two touchdowns - 83 yards on the first play off the game - in the Ravens’ 33-14 victory at Gillette Stadium.
It was important before, but this season it has become increasingly so as Rice, in his fourth season, led the NFL in net yards from scrimmage (2,068), set a franchise record with 15 touchdowns, and finished second in the league with 1,364 rushing yards.
The coaching staffs that know the Ravens the best - those in the AFC North - know the teaching points as well as anyone.
“I think it gets back to the obvious, in that Ray Rice is the key to their offense, both in their run game and the pass game,’’ said Kevin Coyle, the University of Massachusetts graduate and former Holy Cross assistant who has been the Bengals’ defensive backs coach for the past nine seasons. “He’s their leading rusher, leading receiver, he’s the guy that if he can get going, they have a chance to be successful offensively.
“As he goes, so do the Ravens, I really believe that and that’s kind of been their history since he’s been there.’’
Coyle is correct. If Rice gets at least 20 touches in the game, the Ravens win. They were 11-0 this season when that happened. In all four of their losses, Rice did not hit that number.
Rice closed the regular season with 191 yards on 24 carries in a 24-16 victory over the Bengals as he broke touchdown runs of 70 and 51 yards. Cincinnati had the league’s fifth-ranked run defense headed into that game.
To keep that from happening Sunday, Patriots coach Bill Belichick will keep things basic.
“I think, No. 1, is you have to be extremely gap-sound,’’ Coyle said. “You have to make sure that your players on the back side of plays are extremely disciplined because a number of his plays come out of the back side. Plays that are not designed necessarily to be cutback plays, he can turn it into a cutback run, and when he does, if you overpursue, he can really make you pay for it.’’
The Patriots could not have had a better practice run than the Broncos’ offense they stomped in a 45-10 victory Saturday. Defending Denver calls for players to be very disciplined in their gaps and responsibilities.
