You're a Raven and you walk onto the field at Gillette Stadium today and tell yourself: It's just another game.
Then you look over at the New England Patriots sideline and see a grumpy-looking guy in a hoodie wearing a headset and staring at his play chart as if it holds the secrets to the universe - and maybe it does.
Not far from him is the quarterback with the million-dollar arm and GQ looks and super-model wife and three Super Bowl rings stashed in a safe-deposit box somewhere.
And all around you is a wall of noise, crazy beered-up fans shrieking so hard the veins pop out of their necks, telling you how much you stink and what they think of your mother and how their team is going to kick your butt and put you in the hospital, so get ready, loser.
"Sometimes they'll just say, 'Who are you?' " said Ravens wide receiver Kelley Washington, the implication being that you're too insignificant for them to waste a good taunt.
Oh, no, it won't be just another game when the 3-0 Ravens meet the 2-1 Patriots this afternoon in Foxborough, Mass. Don't let anyone tell you different.
There's too much hype, too much of a winning tradition associated with the Patriots, too much mystique surrounding their rumpled genius coach, Bill Belichick, and their great quarterback, Tom Brady, for this to be just another NFL Sunday for the Ravens.
And the Ravens seem fine with that.
Sure, Joe Flacco, who's so laid-back he seems perpetually on the verge of a nap, spent the week telling the news media he wasn't any more pumped for the Patriots game than usual.
"I don't feel any extra hype around it," the Ravens quarterback insisted. "It feels like another game to me. And that's the way I want to keep it. So that's the way we'll approach it."
(Good luck with that, Joe. Let's see if you still feel that way when the team bus pulls up to the stadium and the surly mobs of Patriots fans, who've been breakfasting on Budweisers since 8 in the morning, begin baying and flipping you the bird.)
But many of the older Ravens conceded that playing New England is always special.
How could it not be?
"Obviously, they're among the greatest franchises of any sport," Derrick Mason, the veteran wide receiver, said. "When you win three Super Bowls, three championships in any sport, you're considered a dynasty. You're considered one of the best dynasties that's ever played the team game.
