Five nuggets of knowledge about Sunday's AFC Championship Game:
QB road warrior: Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco has won five of his nine road playoff games, which is more than Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Joe Montana, Brett Favre, Terry Bradshaw, Steve Young and Troy Aikman. Those Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks have a combined 13-29 record in road postseason games. Only Eli Manning has as many road playoff wins as Flacco. Overall, Flacco has a 7-4 record in the postseason. Only two quarterbacks in the Super Bowl era have won more playoff games in their first five seasons: Brady (9-0) and Ben Roethlisberger (8-2).
The final ride: Ray Lewis announced that he is retiring at the end of the season, but the Ravens middle linebacker is more than just an emotional rallying point. Lewis has recorded an NFL-best 30 tackles this postseason. According to ESPN Stats & Information, the last player to post 30 tackles in his first two games of a single postseason was Jonathan Vilma in 2004 when he was with the Jets. Including the plays that were negated by penalty, Lewis has been on the field for all 188 defensive snaps for the Ravens in the playoffs. That's an iron man effort for a player who missed the final 10 weeks of the regular season after having surgery to repair a torn triceps in his right arm.
High-flying Raven: In trying to exploit the NFL's 29th-ranked pass defense, the Ravens will look downfield for Torrey Smith, the best deep threat in the team's history. Smith is averaging 24.4 yards per catch in four playoff games. In Week 3 of the regular season, the Patriots couldn't contain Smith on an emotional night for the Baltimore wide receiver. After losing his younger brother Tevin in a motorcycle accident, Smith finished with 127 yards and two touchdowns on six catches. He was just as explosive in last week's AFC divisional playoff game in Denver, when he scored on touchdown catches of 59 and 32 yards. Smith was tied for seventh in the regular season with 12 catches of 25 or more yards. Including the playoffs, Smith has an NFL-high 36 targets on passes of 25 or more yards, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
Pressure point: Outside linebacker Terrell Suggs has 12 sacks in 13 career postseason games, the most in the NFL since 2008. He is five away from setting the record for most sacks ever in the NFL playoffs. (Willie McGinest holds the record with 16.) Suggs had been struggling in a season marred by injuries to his Achilles tendon and biceps, but he recorded two sacks last week in Denver, matching the total in his first nine games this season. The Ravens have been getting consistent pressure on quarterbacks lately. They have registered multiple sacks in 10 consecutive games, the team's longest streak since the 2006 season. Baltimore had one or fewer sacks in four of its first eight games this season. Brady was sacked only 27 times in the regular season. Among quarterbacks with at least 500 pass attempts, only six were sacked fewer times than Brady.
Moving up the ranks: The Ravens' John Harbaugh has won seven playoff games -- tied for the second most by a coach in his first five seasons in the Super Bowl era. Of those seven wins, three have been over head coaches who had previously led teams to a Super Bowl (Jeff Fisher, Bill Belichick and John Fox). With a win in the AFC Championship Game, Harbaugh would tie the Raiders' Tom Flores for the most by a coach in his first five seasons. Harbaugh is the only head coach in NFL history to win a playoff game in each of his first five seasons, and the only coach to advance to three conference title games over that same span. If Harbaugh loses, he would join four other coaches who lost their first three conference championship games: Andy Reid, Marty Schottenheimer, John Madden and Chuck Knox.