Matt Stover has a marvelous past, two NFL kicking records and unerring accuracy from less than 40 yards.
Steve Hauschka has a promising future, a powerful leg and the ability to combine two jobs into one.
Those appear to be the Ravens' two kicking options as they fast approach coach John Harbaugh's second season, one filled with high expectations.
Choosing Hauschka would be a break with the familiar, sentimental path that Baltimore fans have traveled the past 13 seasons. How many games have Stover and the Ravens' defense won together over those years? More than memory can pull back.
Assuming Hauschka is named the team's kicker after Thursday's final preseason game - and, furthermore, that he can keep the job - Stover will move on, either to another team or to his next career.
Change in the NFL is inevitable, if sometimes painful.
Even in absentia, Stover had a presence at the Ravens' camp this summer, his shadow hovering over the kicking competition between Hauschka and undrafted rookie Graham Gano. Even this week, when Harbaugh acknowledged Hauschka has a leg up on Gano, one of the top college kickers last season at Florida State, he did not rule out the possibility of having Stover return.
"He's always been a factor," Harbaugh said. "Until someone else signs him - as long as he wants to kick - he's a factor around the league."
That's respect gleaned from 18 seasons kicking in the NFL. But the Ravens are operating with a different equation now, and they are caught in the transition from the steady, older Stover, 41, to the boyish Hauschka, 24, who is trying to earn his way in the league.
Harbaugh and special teams coordinator Jerry Rosburg want to save the roster spot that Hauschka occupied last season as a kickoff specialist and long-field-goal kicker. It might even be the overriding factor.
"In my big view of the roster, having [a second] kicker on the roster, whoever that is, is not utilizing the roster properly," Rosburg said Tuesday. "I coach more than just the kickers; I coach the whole special teams, and to be able to have a linebacker or safety that can go down and cover those kicks is very important.
"I have great respect for Matt Stover, and I think he can still kick. Having said that, in my view, it's valuable to have one player doing all those skills."
This year, that extra spot might go to one of the Ravens' intriguing prospects, among them defensive tackle Kelly Talavou, cornerback Derrick Martin or running backs Jalen Parmele or Matt Lawrence.
