New England

Throughout the season, it seemed as if Terrell Suggs was making a conscious effort to keep Tom Brady's name out of his mouth. While spouting out sound bites on other NFL quarterbacks, such as Ben Roethlisberger and Tim Tebow, on the Ravens' long road to the AFC championship game, the linebacker randomly tossed in vague references to his longtime nemesis from New England. Suggs once mentioned "the pretty boy from up north," and earlier this month, he commented about "the nephew of God," a nod to a recent "Saturday Night Live" skit where Jesus confronts Tebow about having to bail him out in games.

Except for playing at home, the Ravens couldn't be in any better position to win an AFC championship when they meet the New England Patriots on Sunday. They aren't going into lowly Jacksonville, Tennessee or Seattle, but Foxborough, Mass., where the Patriots have won five of six playoff games at Gillette Stadium since 2002. They are playing against head coach Bill Belichick, who has won three Super Bowls and Tom Brady, possibly the greatest quarterback in NFL history. Perfect.

When the Ravens travel to Foxborough, Mass., for Sunday's AFC championship game, they may face more than just one opponent in the New England Patriots. The Ravens will be tasked with contradicting a history of dominance at Gillette Stadium, where - since 2002 - New England has won more regular-season games (67) and postseason contests (eight) than any other team in the NFL. The Patriots have dropped just two playoff games at home, but both losses occurred in back-to-back years beginning with the Ravens' 33-14 demolition in the 2009 postseason.

• FoxSports.com's Peter Schrager predicts the Ravens will be heading to Indianapolis for Super Bowl XLVI . The only time these two teams played in a playoff game, it was a 33-14 win in the wild-card round up in New England in 2010. Joe Flacco's 1-0 in playoff games in Foxborough. He's already played in seven road playoff games. There will be no "jitters" from the fourth-year quarterback. It's going to come down to the Ravens linebackers covering those Patriots tight ends.

Here's a look at recent media coverage of the Ravens' upcoming game against the New England Patriots for the AFC championship. * SI.com's Peter King thinks that Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco doesn't necessarily have to be a star for Baltimore to beat New England. For evidence of this, King looks back at Trent Dilfer, Tony Banks, and the Super Bowl-champion Ravens in 2000 . This team has a better running game than the one that struggled in the 2000 postseason, and Flacco is better than Dilfer/Banks.

 

After enduring sub-freezing temperatures, layered in purple and clinging to cozies that were keeping their hands from sticking to the aluminum beer cans, Baltimore's football fans got their reward Sunday. The Ravens, playing their first home playoff game since 2007, won a do-or-die contest against the Houston Texans to face a Sunday showdown with the New England Patriots, and a chance to return to the Super Bowl. The 20-13 victory was in doubt until the very end, but within and around M&T Bank Stadium the home team's fortunes took on a feeling of destiny even before the first snap of the ball.

They have played together for so long that certain things become expected. So even after a regular season in which Ed Reed had just one interception in his final 15 games, Ray Lewis felt it coming, simply because he's seen it so many times before. As the Houston Texans drove into Ravens' territory in the final two minutes looking for a game-tying touchdown, Lewis got the attention of his long-time teammate and made one request. "I told Ed before the play -- he'll tell you that I was joking -- I said, 'After you catch this interception, don't you pitch it,'" Lewis said.

The Associated Press NFL All-Pro teams were announced Friday, and three Ravens players were named to the first team: outside linebacker Terrell Suggs, defensive tackle Haloti Ngata and fullback Vonta Leach. Suggs led the Ravens with 14 sacks in 2011, and his seven forced fumbles are a Ravens single-season record. Ngata had a career-high 64 tackles, recorded five sacks and forced two fumbles during the regular season. Leach paved the way for Ray Rice, who set career highs in rushing yards (1,364)

Richard K. "Dicky" Marshall, a former Gilman School teacher and coach who was also a World War II veteran, died Oct. 5 of heart failure at St. Joseph Medical Center. The Mercy Ridge retirement community resident was 87. The son of physicians, Mr. Marshall was born in Baltimore and was raised on Deepdene Road in Roland Park. After graduating from Gilman School in 1942, he attended Princeton University for a semester before enlisting in the Army Air Forces. Trained as a navigator, he was sent to England, where he flew several missions with the 8th Air Force.