Colts

There was a lot of talk over the past week about the cross-generational battle lines between Ravens fans and Colts fans, about how those old enough to remember the Mayflower moving vans should know better than to root for a team that used to play in Baltimore. But there's a segment of Colts fans who don't know any better - those born after 1984. They are no different from Brooklyn kids who rooted for Sandy Koufax and the Los Angeles Dodgers, not knowing the angst Walter O'Malley caused when he left for the West Coast.

MARYLAND State's honeymoon countdown Despite the losses by Republicans and the inauguration next week of a Democratic governor, the potential for fierce debate remains as the General Assembly convenes this week. The state will be grappling with billion-dollar budget shortfalls, growing pressure to expand health care access, and decisions on the death penalty and gay marriage. pg 1a NIH lab may need overhaul The National Institutes of Health says it is considering "extensive" renovations to an aging research laboratory in Southeast Baltimore because the new, $250 million lab built nearby as a replacement vibrates so much that tests there could be compromised.

I've been wanting to tell you about how I knew all along that the Ravens would skate through the regular season, how they'd end up at the Super Bowl hoisting a trophy above their heads, how this season's team would match the accomplishments of that great squad from 2000. Some people couldn't make heads or tails of it, but I saw the similarities. The question was asked again yesterday, and Brian Billick surely knows it won't be the last time. Maybe that's why he has worked up a pretty good analogy for the constant comparisons between this season's Ravens team and the one that put some hardware in the trophy case six years ago. AFC divisional playoff Ravens vs. TBA (Colts or Patriots or Jets)

MIAMI -- Well, at least Paul Tagliabue didn't get into the Hall of Fame. That would have been the ultimate compound insult. The Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl. The Museum Man in Canton. The official reaction from Baltimore would have been a collective dry heave. Tagliabue didn't get past the first vote, which has to be some consolation for all the disenfranchised Baltimore Colts fans who hold him responsible for the expansion snub of 1993. Who knows how responsible he really was, but his cavalier statement that the city would be better off using its expansion money to build another museum still rankles after all these years.

Justin Bannan's absence from the Ravens' defensive line during the last six games of the 2006 season barely registered outside the team's practice field and locker room, given his role backing up starting tackles Kelly Gregg and Haloti Ngata. Not that Bannan's injury went unnoticed. "When we lost Justin last year, that was one of those subtle things that kind of went under the radar for a lot of people," Ravens coach Brian Billick said this week. "But that hurt us a lot when we lost Justin.

Colts (5-0) @ Jaguars (4-1) -- The Monday night grudge match could be a statement game for the Jaguars. They crushed the Colts in Jacksonville in December, rushing for 375 yards in a 44-17 rout. Bears (2-4) @ Eagles (2-3) -- In a matchup of desperate, last-place teams, the Eagles can deliver a knockout punch to the Bears. Chicago's defense is in shambles, and its quarterback still turns the ball over too much.

Some of us have picked the Ravens. In fact, a lot of the national media types have picked the Ravens. Let's face it, there are a number of really compelling reasons to believe Baltimore's team will put the Colts in a Mayflower truck late this afternoon and send Indy back home in brown cardboard boxes. That said, the Colts can win this game. They have a puncher's chance. Actually, they have more than a puncher's chance. Here's how: Peyton Manning has to be great. Or at least really, really good, with an emphasis on flawless when it comes to turnovers.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Tom Brady threw two interceptions. The New England Patriots gave up a 73-yard touchdown on what appeared to be a harmless dump-off pass. They were penalized a whopping 10 times for 146 yards. And they were held to a measly 10 points midway through the fourth quarter. This after blowing out every other team they had played. It was as poor a showing for the Patriots in what had been an otherwise mind-boggling display of football this season. "There were a lot of things we could have done better, for sure," coach Bill Belichick said.

What's that phrase National Football League officials use after they've checked out a play that's been challenged? Oh, yeah: "after further review." Well, after further review, I've found I still have some Colts-fan DNA lingering in my body. No disrespect to my beloved Ravens, but I find myself ready to whoop it up for the Indy Colts (or the Baltimore Colts Playing in Indianapolis, as I fondly call them) when they face the Chicago Bears in the Super Bowl tomorrow. I just can't watch the guys in that Colt blue and those horseshoe helmets and root against them and for -- the Bears?

On that overcast January day from which the Ravens have not yet recovered, Steve McNair threw to tight end Todd Heap on the goal line and found safety Antoine Bethea instead. Baltimore football history shuddered and pivoted on that pass. A 13-3 team that had seemed poised to return to the Super Bowl spent the rest of the day chasing the Indianapolis Colts in a touchdownless, 15-6 loss in the AFC divisional playoffs. The Ravens were on the road to ruin. The Colts, who had lost three of their last five regular-season games and given up 375 rushing yards in one of them, were on their way to a Super Bowl championship.

Mixed martial arts competition makes its debut in the state of Maryland as more than 5,000 fans turn out to watch the Shogun Fights event at 1st Mariner Arena. Blood and bruises were in plain view during the 11 fights on the card, but there were no serious injuries, and the promotion ran relatively smoothly. Local celebrities who attended the event included Ravens running back Ray Rice, Dunbar graduate and current Washington Wizards assistant coach Sam Cassell, and former Colts running back Lenny Moore.

WNBA Finals, Game 5 Fever@Mercury 8 p.m. [ESPN2] Indiana missed a chance Wednesday night to clinch in front of Colts stars Peyton Manning and Reggie Wayne. Let's see if the Cardinals' Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald show up tonight in Phoenix for the decisive fifth game. What would they see? Maybe a Hail Mary basket put up by the Fever's Katie Douglas, near left, or the Mercury's Diana Taurasi.

Forty-four years later, Gary Cuozzo recalls every nuance of his first NFL start. Who wouldn't, having replaced John Unitas in the lineup and passed for five touchdowns? It was the game of a lifetime for Cuozzo, then the Baltimore Colts' understudy who made pro football history on a brisk November day in 1965. No quarterback, before or since, has done what Cuozzo did in his first full game. Subbing for an injured Unitas, he led the Colts to a 41-21 victory in Minnesota, the seventh straight win for the playoff-bound club.

"The Band That Wouldn't Die," Barry Levinson's documentary on his native city's astonishingly resilient Colts-cum- Ravens marching band, will get its U.S. premiere Oct. 6 at M&T Bank Stadium. "We were very touched and honored that world-famous producer and director Barry Levinson would produce something like this about the Marching Ravens," said band president John Ziemann. "It not only represents Baltimore and Maryland, but it represents every person who is a professional football fan in this city and state."

Week 1 CHIEFS Result: W, 38-24 Week 2 AT CHARGERS Sunday, Sept. 20 4:15 p.m. Week 3 BROWNS Sunday, Sept. 27 1 p.m Week 4 AT PATRIOTS Sunday, Oct. 4 1 p.m. Week 5 BENGALS Sunday, Oct. 11 1 p.m. Week 6 AT VIKINGS Sunday, Oct. 18 1 p.m. Week 7 BYE WEEK Week 8 BRONCOS Sunday, Nov. 1 1 p.m. Week 9 AT BENGALS Sunday, Nov 8 1 p.m. Week 10 AT BROWNS Monday, Nov. 16 8:30 p.m. Week 11 COLTS Sunday, Nov. 22 1 p.m. Week 12 STEELERS Sunday, Nov. 29 8:20...

Leafing through his mail Monday, Jim Mutscheller assumed it was just another autograph request - until he examined the postmark. The letter was from the Czech Republic. In his best English, the writer asked Mutscheller, 79, to sign two bubble-gum cards of the Baltimore Colts tight end in his heyday. Mutscheller complied and sent the football cards back. "In all these years, this is the first time I ever got [fan mail] from a foreign country," he said. "I thought, 'Man, I'm really getting popular.

He lives in Upperco, in a weathered old farmhouse on 46 acres that he bought for a song when he retired from football. There's a sweet spring-fed pond out back full of catfish and bass, a vegetable patch stuffed with sweet corn and beans, and a woodpile large enough to keep the home fires burning all winter. Fred Miller doesn't want for much. And if he did, you wouldn't hear a peep from the 69-year-old tackle, a mainstay of the Baltimore Colts' defensive line in their heyday. A three-time Pro Bowl selection, Miller spent a decade here (1963-1972)

He was the smallest offensive tackle of his day, and maybe the smartest. It wasn't size but savvy that made Bob Vogel one of football's top linemen and a pillar of the Baltimore Colts' storied front wall. Vogel, the team's top draft choice in 1963, spent the next decade taming sack packs and clearing paths for Colts' runners despite a 240-pound frame that even then was underwhelming. "I wasn't one of those guys who could lift the stadium," said Vogel, who attended Ohio State. "I was purely a technician.

For nearly a month each summer, Ravens players move from their luxurious homes to a two-story hotel, where they share a room that is smaller than some of their man caves. Instead of fancy dinners with significant others, they eat in a cafeteria with 80 of their closest (and largest) friends. Nighttime trips to clubs are replaced by evening meetings. As a result, their thoughts are squarely on football. Their circle of friends during training camp is composed of teammates. It's the ultimate in team-building.

They called it Orrsville, that patch of pay dirt in the Baltimore Colts' end zone where No. 28 plied his trade. How many teams were buried there, in the closed end of Memorial Stadium, beaten by a scoring pass to the elusive Jimmy Orr? "I must have caught 45 or 50 touchdowns in that right corner," said Orr, a favorite Colts receiver in the 1960s. "It was sloped some, a little downhill, which helped me, speed-wise. I wasn't all that fast." But Orr had sure hands and he ran smart routes, which made him All-Pro - and the club's deep threat for much of his 10 years with the Colts.