Ravens

Today at 1 p.m., at M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore TV: Fox29 Radio: WIP-AM (610), WYSP-FM (94.1) Line: Ravens by 1 1/2 THE MATCHUP EAGLES DEFENSE VS. RAVENS RUNNING GAME Eagles run stoppers Key players in stopping the run are tackles Mike Patterson and Brodrick Bunkley, end Trent Cole, linebacker Stewart Bradley and safety Quintin Mikell. Mikell and Bradley are the Eagles? two leading tacklers. Known mostly for his pass rush, Cole is also among the league?s best at closing off the corner.

The Baltimore Ravens discovered what the Eagles found out a week ago - it's no fun right now playing the New York Giants. The Ravens (6-4) will surely not be in the best of moods when they host the Eagles on Sunday after yesterday's 30-10 loss at Giants Stadium. Of course the Eagles can't be feeling too good after yesterday's 13-13 tie with the Cincinnati Bengals. The Eagles will be facing a streaky Ravens team, sort of like a mirror image of themselves. Yesterday's loss snapped a four-game win streak for the Ravens.

They're knocking. The good ol' boys are knocking, and they're looking for Marvin Lewis. Herm Edwards, the Buccaneers' assistant head coach for the past five seasons, just got a head-coaching job with the Jets. He's just the sixth black head coach in the history of the league. The last one to break in? Edwards' former boss, Tony Dungy, five years ago. But now things might be changing just as Lewis' star is at its highest. His Ravens defense, which he has run since 1996, is being compared to the greatest units ever.

PITTSBURGH - Torrey Smith wasn't going to let the game-winning touchdown slip through his hands twice. Five plays after a sure scoring strike tipped off his fingers, the Baltimore rookie receiver held onto a 26-yard touchdown pass from Joe Flacco with 8 seconds remaining to lift the Ravens past the Pittsburgh Steelers, 23-20, last night. Smith capped Baltimore's game-winning, 92-yard drive by beating William Gay down the right sideline as the Ravens (6-2) snapped Pittsburgh's four-game winning streak.

The Baltimore Ravens had a chance to seize the AFC Central title, a first-round bye and home-field advantage until the Super Bowl. Instead, after Tennessee beat Dallas last night, Baltimore ended up clutching a wild card. The Ravens will make their initial foray into the postseason Sunday afternoon at home against the Denver Broncos. It will be the first NFL playoff game in Baltimore since 1977, when the Colts lost to the Oakland Raiders in overtime. The Ravens (12-4)

Recent history: The Eagles defeated the Ravens on Oct. 31, 2004 at the Linc, 15-10. The Eagles lead the series, 1-0-1.   Offense   Eagles: 363.8 yards per game (6th) Ravens: 318.3 yards per game (19th)   Quarterback   Eagles: Donovan McNabb is going through one of those maddening periods again where he looks like he's never played before. In the last four games, he's completed just 53.8 percent of his passes and turned the ball over seven times. He's an abysmal 6-for-27 in the first quarter of those four games.

Reacting to a complaint filed by the player's association against the Ravens, the NFL on Monday canceled the last week of Baltimore's off-season training camp, scheduled for June 14 through 18. According to the league, the Ravens "violated the rules concerning the intensity and tempo of drills" and "the length of time spent by players at the team facility. " Colts. Team president Bill Polian told reporters during a charity golf tournament in Batavia, N.Y. that he was confident Indianapolis would re-sign quarterback Peyton Manning before the four-time MVP's contract expires after the 2010 season.

Marvin Lewis, the architect of Baltimore's tenacious and Super Bowl-bound defense, will interview for the Cleveland Browns' head coaching vacancy after the season, according to broadcast reports. Cleveland television stations WKYC and WJW reported yesterday that Lewis - Baltimore's defensive coordinator the last five seasons - will talk to the Browns after the AFC champion Ravens play the New York Giants in the Super Bowl on Jan. 28 in Tampa, Fla. The reports, which cited no sources, said the Ravens had given the Browns permission to interview the 42-year-old Lewis.

I may be the only guy in Philadelphia who can sympathize with Eagles coach Andy Reid. My last weekend went about as well as his. The opening bell of the NFL season saw the seven picks in this space go 2-5, and that included sharing some of Reid's pain as the selection of the Eagles as home underdogs against the Green Bay Packers flamed out. However, it's a long season. Baltimore at Cincinnati (plus-2). It was difficult to tell Monday night against the Jets, but the Ravens do have an improved offense to go along with one of the stoutest defenses in the NFL. To eliminate any suspense, this is a Ravens pick, but not without reservation.

49ERS (-2) over Giants You can't argue that the New Yorkers have really stepped it up the last month, winning and covering five of the last six, but we have to put the Big Blue under the Vic-roscope (it's like a microscope, just more invasive). The Giants' win over the Packers (37-20) was as solid as it gets, but don't forget they were playing against the 32nd ranked defense in the league. That win over the Falcons (24-2) was solid as well, but Atlanta and Matt Ryan looked like deer in the headlights.

Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh made a critical remark about the New England Patriots in a radio interview on Tuesday, but later backtracked. Harbaugh told a Baltimore station that New England's championships "got asterisks now; it's been stained" while referring to the Spygate scandal of 2007. The Ravens later released a a statement from Harbaugh in which he said his "reference was to the perception out there that came as the result of the league's actions. " He said that he could have been clearer and that "I totally believe that the Patriot and Saint coaches and players earned those championships.

  NEW YORK - The overnight wait paid off for Stanford tight end Coby Fleener. He's reuniting with his college quarterback, a guy named Andrew Luck. Fleener wasn't chosen in the first round of the NFL draft, in which Luck was No. 1. Fleener got a nice consolation prize on Friday night when the Indianapolis Colts grabbed him with the second pick of the second round. Chances are good Fleener will become a starter - and a main target - for Luck. "I just sent him a text message that had a lot of exclamation points in it," said Fleener, who had 10 touchdown catches last season and 18 for his career in Stanford's prodigious offense.

The Raven opens with Edgar Allan Poe near death on a Baltimore park bench, which conforms to what historians know about the writer's final moments. Circumstances surrounding Poe's death remain a mystery, but The Raven offers its version - we see that not long before, Poe had been trying to get money out of a newspaper publisher, which would kill just about anybody. Poe, as we learn in The Raven, was not just the genius inventor of the detective story, the proto-Goth poet, nor the swooning balladeer to the departed.

QUOTH THE RAVEN, "Nevermore. " So says Edgar Allan Poe anyway. But what does "Nevermore" sound like with a Philly accent? Because the raven — yes, that raven — that inspired Poe's most famous work and the title of the new John Cusack-starring thriller — resides right here in town. At the Rare Book Department in the Central branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, to be exact. Despite being an English bird by birth, the raven has resided at the library since 1971, when Col. Richard Gimbel, of the famed department-store dynasty, bequeathed the raven to the library.

The ball is in Evan Mathis' court. The free-agent guard has contract offers from both the Eagles and Ravens, but it was unclear Friday which team had the best deal - monetarily - on the table. The Eagles made a "competitive" offer, according to a league source. It's safe to say it was enticing, otherwise Mathis wouldn't have left Baltimore after his two-day visit with the Ravens without a new deal. Right now, it appears he has only two alternatives. His agent, Drew Rosenhaus, could pit the Eagles and Ravens against each other for another few rounds of back and forth, but that game can only be played out for so long.

Evan Mathis is staying overnight in Baltimore, the Ravens are schmoozing the guard, and the Eagles can do nothing more than wait and hope. Welcome to free agency, or, as Howie Roseman called it, "a big boy sport. " The Eagles want Mathis back. But the question, as it often is in free agency, is how badly do they want to keep him? And that question will ultimately be answered in dollars and cents. Roseman was asked Thursday if the Eagles were prepared to do whatever it took to retain their starting left guard.

The Holy Family women's basketball team advanced to Monday's NCAA Division II East Regional championship game with a 71-61 victory over second-seeded Southern Connecticut State, in Waltham, Mass., Saturday night. The Tigers' leading scorer Erin Mann (Villa Maria) led all scorers with 25 points. Teammate Ana Cruz scored 18 in the victory. Sixth-seeded Holy Family (26-7) will face top-seeded Bentley, which beat Franklin-Pierce, 54-52, in the other semifinal, on Monday. The Owls finished the season 25-6.

Jim Caldwell is back in the NFL, this time as the Baltimore Ravens' quarterbacks coach. The 57-year-old Caldwell was hired yesterday, less than 2 weeks after he was fired as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts following a 2-14 season. Caldwell went 26-22 in 3 years with Indianapolis, including a Super Bowl appearance. After working with Colts standout quarterback Peyton Manning for 10 seasons, Caldwell will turn his attention toward improving Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco and teaming with offensive coordinator Cam Cameron to strengthen Baltimore's passing game, which ranked 19th this season.

TWO DAYS AFTER Peyton Manning publicly complained about the dour atmosphere at team headquarters following a 2-14 season and a rash of firings, Colts owner Jim Irsay introduced his new head coach and then stunned everyone by calling his franchise player a "politician" who had decided to air dirty laundry. "I don't think it's in the best interest to paint the horseshoe in a negative light, I really don't," Irsay told reporters, referring to the team's longtime logo. "The horseshoe always comes first, and I think one thing he's always known, because he's been around it so long, is that, you know, you keep it in the family.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - After a Ravens win in the AFC divisional playoff game on Jan. 15, members of the media and even some Baltimore teammates questioned Joe Flacco's play. On Sunday, the Ravens lost to the Patriots in the AFC title game, but Flacco's teammates said he showed the country why they believe the Audubon native and University of Delaware alum is a franchise quarterback. "He played a heck of a game in a championship football game," said linebacker Ray Lewis, whose words carry immense weight in Baltimore.