Pro Bowl

Jermaine Gresham, Demaryius Thomas and Rob Gronkowski, three possible first-round targets for the Ravens, carry tremendous potential into Thursday's NFL draft, as well as an asterisk. They could become Pro Bowl pass catchers, the top targets in the NFL for the next decade. Or they could never develop into starters. Or they could never play a snap in the league. Injury concerns have been difficult to shake for these three gifted prospects and represent the main reason why one, if not all, could be available at the Ravens' 25th overall pick.

The kick knifed through the thick fog and split the uprights at Memorial Stadium, giving the Colts a 10-7 victory in sudden-death overtime. In a flash, fans swarmed the field. Down came the goal posts. Up went Toni Linhart, on someone's shoulders. Linhart's 31-yard field goal defeated the rival Miami Dolphins late in 1975 and all but clinched Baltimore's first of three straight AFC East titles. It was the kick of a lifetime for Linhart, who died Sunday morning of cancer, at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium . He was 70. One of only six Austrian-born NFL players, Anton Hans Jorg Linhart signed with the Colts in 1974 after one season with the New Orleans Saints and an 11-year soccer career in Europe.

Looking for a place to not watch the Pro Bowl on Sunday night? Three municipalities are currently presenting Restaurant Week promotions. It's the last night for Baltimore County Restaurant Week and the next to last night for Howard County Restaurant Weeks . Baltimore City's restaurant week promotion is just getting started. It's day three of the 10 day promotion, and some 100 restaurants are offering fixed price menus of $30.13 (or $20.13) for three-course dinners and $15.13 for two-course lunches during Baltimore Winter Restaurant Week . Check out our lavish, meticulously produced photo gallery of participating restaurants.

The NFL Network has started to slowly reveal its list of the top 100 players of the 2012 season. But knowing how little thought some players give while filling out their ballots, I have a hard time taking that list seriously. The list that interested me more was the top 101 players of 2012 from the guys over at Pro Football Focus . Six PFF analysts put together the list, and they say they based it not on the reputation of players but solely on how they played in the 2012. They also tried to treat each position equally so the top 20 guys aren't quarterbacks.

The Ravens, who enter Sunday's regular-season finale against the Cincinnati Bengals as the No. 2 seed in the AFC, could be well-represented next month in the Pro Bowl with seven players being selected Tuesday for the game, including six as starters. But count linebacker Terrell Suggs among the Ravens who have no desire to be in Honolulu on Jan. 29. “To be clear, I have no intentions of playing in the Pro Bowl,” said Suggs. “I plan on being in practice with my teammates that week, getting ready for the Super Bowl.” Suggs did say that he was “excited and honored” but he made it clear that cold Indianapolis - and not sunny Hawaii - is the desired destination for the Ravens, who nonetheless garnered the second-most Pro Bowl selections in team history.

The Ravens' Jonathan Ogden, Todd Heap and Peter Boulware were selected to the Pro Bowl. Rosters, [Page 4d]

Despite multiple attempts to get Vonta Leach a touchdown during the 2011 season, the Ravens fullback always came up short of the end zone. On Sunday night during the Pro Bowl in Honolulu, Leach got another chance to score. This time he made the most of his opportunity. With 11:45 left in the fourth quarter, Leach got the handoff from Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton at the 1 and busted through the line for a touchdown. Leach's score, followed by Sebastian Janikowski's extra point, gave the AFC a 45-35 lead.

Four Ravens players have dropped out of the Pro Bowl, making the annual all-star affair less attractive to those Ravens fans who wish they had better plans Sunday afternoon. (Quarterback Joe Flacco withdrew from the annual MSP Polar Bear Plunge, too, but give the guy a break: He's a newlywed and his wife is pregnant). But besides passing up an opportunity to go to Hawaii, I can't say I blame Ray Rice, Terrell Suggs, Ed Reed and Haloti Ngata for exercising their right to miss the game, whether their reasons are injury-related or personal.

It's been a long wait for Terrell Suggs to exact his revenge on the New England Patriots, and when the Ravens' 28-13 win was complete Sunday, he let loose. "Tell them to have fun at the Pro Bowl," Suggs said after the game to Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports! about the Patriots. "Shut them out in the second half. Arrogant [expletive]. These are the most arrogant [expletive] in the world starting with [coach Bill] Belichick on down. " The Patriots beat the Ravens last year in the AFC championship game, 23-20, but lost the Super Bowl to the New York Giants.

The Ravens' contingent at Sunday's Pro Bowl game in Honolulu, Hawaii keeps shrinking by the day. Defensive tackle Haloti Ngata and safety Ed Reed have become the latest Ravens to pull out of the game, leaving them with four representatives instead of the original number of eight. Ngata has been hampered by a thigh injury that didn't force him to miss any games, but team officials believed that it significantly affected his performance down the stretch. Reed dealt with shoulder/neck issues much of the season and then hurt his ankle in the Ravens' divisional playoff victory over the Houston Texans.

When the three-day NFL draft was finally nearing its end and the Ravens had made the last of their 10 selections, general manager Ozzie Newsome headed downstairs and ticked off all the things that the front office had just accomplished. They had strengthened the defense up the middle in a big way with the drafting of safety Matt Elam (first round), inside linebacker Arthur Brown (second), and nose tackle Brandon Williams (third). They added depth and versatility to the offensive line with Saturday's selections of Wisconsin tackle Ricky Wagner, the fifth-round pick who could move to guard, and Colorado State-Pueblo tackle Ryan Jensen who will come in as a center.

The Pro Bowl, especially in recent years, has produced as much excitement and intrigue as watching somebody spackle your bathroom. But the NFL is reportedly considering shaking up the format to try to save the game. According to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, one suggestion for tweaking the all-star game, which is held between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl, ripped a page out of the NHL's playbook. The, in Rapoport's words, “intriguing option” is holding a draft when players arrive in Honolulu to determine who would play on each team.

Watching NFL players dance can be awe-inspiring. Or it can be like watching hippos on rollerblades. Donald Driver, Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith were terrific on "Dancing with the Stars. " So was Warren Sapp, who turned out to be a 300-pound Michael Jackson without the emotional baggage. But Lawrence Taylor looked like he was trying to start a balky lawnmower engine when he danced the jive. And Michael Irvin showed all the hip action of a geriatric patient doing the cha-cha. Now the latest football player to join the show is Jacoby Jones, who wants to see if his famous swivel-hipped end zone celebrations can help him on dancing's biggest stage.

When the Ravens made Ray Lewis their second-ever draft pick, they knew they were getting a highly productive player from the talent-rich University of Miami. What they could not have known was that Lewis would become perhaps the greatest middle linebacker in history and one of the faces of his NFL generation. Through 17 seasons of controversy and excellence, Lewis' Baltimore ride has never been boring: 1996 On April 20, the Ravens select Lewis with their second pick in the first round of the NFL draft, 26th overall.

On Sunday, the Ravens play the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII, and they will attempt to win their second Lombardi Trophy with a roster largely constructed with homegrown players raised in the Ravens Way. The vast majority of those players have been acquired in the past five years, though there are a handful of Pro Bowl players and franchise building blocks that have stood the test of time -- including that No. 52 guy. Here is a...

Looking for a place to not watch the Pro Bowl on Sunday night? Three municipalities are currently presenting Restaurant Week promotions. It's the last night for Baltimore County Restaurant Week and the next to last night for Howard County Restaurant Weeks . Baltimore City's restaurant week promotion is just getting started. It's day three of the 10 day promotion, and some 100 restaurants are offering fixed price menus of $30.13 (or $20.13) for three-course dinners and $15.13 for two-course lunches during Baltimore Winter Restaurant Week . Check out our lavish, meticulously produced photo gallery of participating restaurants.

Despite being a rookie, Justin Tucker ranks third in the NFL in field-goal percentage (93.5) and seventh in points (127). It wasn't enough, however, for the Ravens kicker to earn a Pro Bowl invitation. The Cleveland Browns' Phil Dawson, who leads the league in field-goal percentage (96.6), got was selected as the AFC's kicker. Ravens special teams coordinator Jerry Rosburg said Tucker could become a regular Pro Bowler if he maintains his consistency and productivity. “I really don't know how the Pro Bowl voting goes.

And then there were six.The Ravens, who had five players selected last month to play in this year's Pro Bowl, learned yesterday that a sixth player, outside linebacker Peter Boulware, will be joining his Baltimore teammates in Honolulu.Boulware, a second-year player out of Florida State who joined the Ravens as a top draft pick in 1997 and earned honors as a first alternate to the Feb. 7 Pro Bowl, was named a "need player" by AFC coach Bill Parcells.The "need player" is selected from the first alternates at defensive end, inside linebacker or outside linebacker.

Et cetera Taft named Nationals' fifth racing president One of the most popular baseball sideshows is the presidents mascots race during Nationals games in Washington, and the lineup just got a lot beefier with William Howard Taft joining the ranks of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and George Washington. That's because Taft was the largest, by mass, of any U.S. leader, tipping the scales at more than 300pounds. The race among 12-foot mascots had been best known for two things: Roosevelt never winning and random acts of sabotage as the racers clumsily circle the field during a break in the fourth inning.

When the Ravens and San Francisco 49ers meet in Super XLVII on Feb. 3, Sam Koch will get a chance to match his punting skills with one of the top punters in the NFL. Andy Lee is a three-time Pro Bowler who ranks first in 49ers history in punts (790), yards (36,295), gross average (45.9 yards) and net average (39.2). In the regular season, he led the NFL with a 43.2 net average and ranked third with 36 punts inside the 20-yard line. Koch, no wallflower himself with a career-high and franchise-record 47.1-yard gross average and a career-best 40.8-yard net average, has admired Lee's accomplishments from a distance.