Happy New Year and welcome to 2010. The NFL playoffs are at full steam and I live in Charm City (Baltimore). Our Ravens shocked the sports world on Sunday by dismantling the New England Patriots at Foxboro.
However, I think the Ravens bandwagon comes to a screeching halt when they play the Indianapolis Colts on Saturday night. It comes down to one sentence: Karma in the form of Matt Stover.
Matt Stover was the Ravens kicker for its entire history in Baltimore until this past off-season. Stover’s career path is pretty ironic giving the cities he has played in over his career. He started in New York, won the kicking job in Cleveland for the Browns in 1991, moved to Baltimore when the Browns became the Ravens in 1996, and this season got picked up by the last NFL team from Baltimore – the hated Indianapolis Colts.
Now, after being let go by the Ravens, Stover is playing on the team that stands between his former team and its second straight AFC Championship berth. Karma and/or destiny has set up this reckoning between former player and the team that he kicked to a Super Bowl in 2000.
Reality sometimes writes more interesting story lines than fiction could ever come up with. Saturday night will be vindication – either for Matt Stover or for Jim Harbaugh.
Faculty, Department of Political Science, Towson University. Graduate from Liberty University Seminary.