The Baltimore Ravens host the Jacksonville Jaguars in the final regular season game, seeking to nail down the final playoff spot as the #6 seeded Wild Card. The game has been moved to 4:15pm and their playoff fate may actually be decided by the time they take the field. The New England Patriots are hoping for a victory in Buffalo earlier today and a Ravens loss to help them back into the playoffs. However, if you read my posting of the weekend's predictions from Saturday, I am actually predicting a Bills upset of the Pats, which automatically puts the Ravens in the playoffs regardless of what happens in our game. However, as Coach John Harbaugh has said, he's going on as if the Patriots are winning today and expects no letdown.

The Ravens will end the 2008 season in a way that virtually no one expected just a few short months ago. If you kept up with my game-by-game predictions way back this summer when I previewed the Ravens upcoming season, I actually predicted the Ravens finishing 10-6, but missing the playoffs. I may not have picked each game as they happened in reality, but still have exceeded even my bold expectations. I would definitely prefer not to have my season predicition come true, much less the not making the playoffs part, which could happen if the Pats won and the Ravens lost.

Don't worry, as the New England Patriots have a chance to become one of the few, if not the only, 11-5 team to not make the post season, and the Ravens will not let this great opportunity slip away this afternoon. No, the Ravens will not take the Jags lightly, nor lose their focus after coming this far. The Ravens will do what they have done to all the teams they've faced with losing records and that is, just win, baby! Baltimore has beaten, and badly, every team they've faced this season with a losing record. Despite their reputation of only being able to beat losers, the Ravens have done what playoff teams are supposed to do, and that is to beat the lesser teams. Jacksonville is coming to an end of a terribly disappointing season, with a 5-10 record after coming into 2008 with most people seeing them competing for the AFC South title and perhaps even a Super Bowl berth. However, they will be spending the playoffs watching them on television and while they will not back down from Baltimore, they will not have the motivation that the Ravens will have today.

Playing at home, in front of a great, loud crowd, in unusually balmy weather, the Ravens fans will go insane as the game progresses. The fans and players will smell blood and as the clock winds down in the fourth quarter, the crescendo will rise to near deafening levels. This is the last home game of the season, for if the Ravens hope to advance in the post season they will have to do it as visitors and underdogs, which is fine with them. Not garnering respect as a true Super Bowl contender has worked for them in the past (2000-01) and would be great to see it happen again. However, the task today is just to take care of business for 60 minutes against the Jaguars.

The Ravens will play their typical style of play, taking away the Jags run game, led by the elusive Maurice Jones-Drew, who will be the feature back today with the season ending injury to veteran Fred Taylor. The Ravens defense will hit him hard and often, wearing him down and forcing QB David Garrard to the air. Garrard is not a bad passer at all, but his receivers have not played their part in making him more successful. The Jags offensive line has been awful, decimated by injuries and the unfortunate shooting of lineman Richard Collier this summer. The Ravens pass rush should have a field day, chasing and harassing Garrard all game, and causing the QB to make the errors that result in the turnovers that this defense has feasted upon all season.

Offensively, the Ravens will run, run and then run the ball some more. Mixed in with the run will be enough passes to keep the Jags secondary honest and from creeping up to put eight or nine in the box. Ravens QB Joe Flacco will have Derrick Mason on the field, despite his clipped wing, which should bode well for the passing game. However, if the Pats are eliminated from the playoffs by the Blls, expect the Ravens regulars to play only a small portion of the game.

Regardless of what happens in the Pats game, the outcome here in Baltimore will not change. The Ravens have way too much on both sides of the ball, not to mention what is riding on this game, for the Jaguars to keep up with them today. The Ravens offense moves the ball effectively and controls the timeclock as it has done all season. Meanwhile the defense shuts down the Jags offense and continues its streak of creating turnovers and a short field for the offense to work with.

It's playoff time next week, folks and trust me, nobody wants to face this team, be it either the Jets, Dolphins or Patriots.

Ravens:  26-10

...I just don't see the Ravens being flat for the Jacksonville game.

...head coach John Harbaugh won't let them think the game is in the bag, as he's not overconfident.

... I'm sure he IS confident that his team will win.

...despite their terrible season and 5-10 record which includes losses in five of their last six games and eight of ten, the Jags will not lay down and could be a dangerous team.

...Maurice Jones-Drew is one of the few guys in this league that can score everytime he touches the ball, and you know he'll get a bunch of touches.

...hopefully the guy known as "pocket Hercules" will feel the pain that Ray Lewis and company can bring.

...Jags QB David Garrard is an elusive scrambler and can be a very streaky passer.

...don't forget they took the Colts to the brink in their last game and also beat them earlier this season.

...that was when the Colts looked like a totally different team than they do now.

...don't forget that I said around a month ago that if the Ravens don't make it, I predicted a Manning v. Manning Super Bowl.

...to go off on a different tangent, what in the world was the idiot Plaxico Burress thinking when he STILL had a cache of weapons found in his house, including the bloody clothing he was wearing when he shot himself in the leg!?

...please don't force feed me any more news on the possible retirement of Brett Favre, as I had more than my fill last summer and would prefer not to hear him whine or see him cry again this off season.

...I am rooting for the Buffalo Bills to make our game irrelevant Sunday by upsetting the Patriots in the earlier game.

...I am also rooting for the Miami Dolphins to win the AFC East, although I wouldn't mind punking Favre's butt in HIS last game!

...while we beat the Dolphins earlier this season and I fully expect to beat them again in the post season, this will be a much different and tougher game this time around than it was the first time.

...I can't believe the San Diego Chargers are going to come back from the grave to beat the Denver Broncos and take the AFC West.

...the Broncos should have wrapped that division up weeks ago but couldn't play defense against anyone and doomed themselves to this meltdown.

...the Chargers will be a more dangerous team in the post season than Denver would have been.

...what do we care, as the Colts will have to go to San Diego, or Denver, if by some chance the Broncos pull off a miracle.

...it really doesn't matter, as Indy will beat either one and then go to Pittsburgh and beat the Steelers as well in the next round.

...and while I fully expect to beat the Dolphins and Jets in the first round, I just do not like the matchup with the Patriots, should they end up winning the AFC East title and host us in the first round of the playoffs.

...the Ravens can certainly confound and confuse Matt Cassel, the weather and some guy named Randy Moss might think differently.

...if we handle Moss the same way we did TO, we should be okay, although that little man, Wes Welker, scares me due to his ability to cross the field on the short slant for huge gains, which is our defense's Achilles Heel.

...I can't believe that the NFL (Scrooge) fined the Pats Wes Welker $10G for making a snow angel last week in their win over the hapless Cardinals.

...It's only Friday and I've been going silly since last week's amazing game and win over the Cowboys as I wait for this Sunday's playoff clinhing victory over the Jags!

Well, we come to the final game of the regular season with the Ravens actually assured of ending 2008 with a winning record. Whether or not they make the post season is another story, though. Not only do they need to win this game against the playoff bound Jaguars (just another prediction), but now they need to rely on a series of events involving a few other AFC teams in order to mathematically back into the playoffs. While the Steelers, along with the Pats, Colts and Chargers are resting their starters in preparation for the second season,  there are still a few other teams competing with the Ravens for that final Wild Card slot. The other teams we will be rooting against are the Titans, Bills, Broncos and perhaps yes, even the Browns. Winning this game alone will just not put the Ravens into the playoffs, which is frustrating, yet exciting compared to last year's debacle of a season.

The good news is that the Jags are already in, having clinched the first Wild Card slot and 5th seed last week, and are getting ready to face either the Colts or Steelers in the first round of the playoffs next week. Therefore, I'm guessing that they will not be playing their first team much more than the first quarter or so. On the flip side, the Ravens will be playing for their playoff lives, and will throw everything, including the kitchen sink at Jacksonville in their desperate attempt to control their own fate. This scenerio will lead to a Ravens victory over the limited Jaguars, although I'm not too sure if Baltimore could win this game if both teams were at even strength. The Jags have been improving each year and are a tough team, with a hard hitting defense and a grind it out offense behind a great running game and an underrated QB in David Garrard (Byron Leftwich who?). The receiving corps have been bolstered and the running game is one of the league's most dangerous, with Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew punishing defenses both inside and out.

However, both of these guys won't be in the entire game, much less Garrard. The Ravens defense will be playing for blood and the offense will do whatever they need to do to put points on the board, emptying Cam Cameron's playbook in order to do so. Expect the Ravens to put a clamp on Jacksonville's scoring, while grinding it out behind both Willis McGahee and Ray Rice, with the passing game heating up with the season on the line. The Ravens will win this last game of the regular season due to the much different goals the two teams have coming into this contest. Thankfully, the football scheduling gods must have been looking out for the Ravens when they made the schedule, with the luck that only the Ravens will see this as a must win game.

Ravens: 20  Jaguars: 10

Seaosn Record: 10-6