Sports

Birthday boy Flacco can set price with Ravens win

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Dear Joe:

Maybe we’ll meet at the Super Bowl, but in the meantime, allow me to be the first to wish you a happy birthday.

Hard to believe you’re turning 28 today. It seems like yesterday Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome made you the 18th pick of the 2008 NFL draft out of Delaware, of all places. Not sure if he ever got near you, but that was the draft when Mike Tannenbaum and Eric Mangini fell in love with Vernon Gholston and selected him with the sixth pick.

And when you were cutting your teeth at your first training camp, that was the summer graybeard Brett Favre and his naughty cell phone arrived in New York for a one-and-done failure that led to the drafting of Mark Sanchez in 2009 and too many Stupid Jet Tricks to enumerate now.

All right, enough of the pleasantries, allow me to get to the point:

You stared down Andrew Luck. Then you stared down Peyton Manning.

Now your city and franchise are asking you to stare down Tom Brady and take Ray Lewis back to the Super Bowl. In Brady’s backyard. Where he is (gulp) 86-15 as a starter.

I know that won’t ruin your birthday, because you went into Gillette Stadium and outplayed him in last year’s AFC Championship Game, didn’t you? You would have been in your first Super Bowl against Eli Manning and the Giants if Lee Evans had held on to that touchdown pass or if Billy Cundiff hadn’t choked on that 32-yard field goal.

Everybody laughed when you announced before the season you thought you were the best quarterback in the game, because it is the only way for a quarterback to think, and of course everyone laughed when Eli volunteered that he thought he was elite and promptly proceeded to win his second Super Bowl MVP award.

Now you and I both know you are by no means the best quarterback in the league, not after your maddening regular season. No disrespect intended, Joe, but you do not deserve to call yourself elite yet either.

But you and I both know you will be looking for the big payday when the season ends, and this game right here is the one that can get it for you.

This is your Money Bowl. Your chance to make your case that you are worth more than Matt Schaub (four years, $62 million) if less than Drew Brees (five years, $100 million).

Yes, you are the first quarterback to reach the playoffs in each of his first five seasons. Yes, you’ve never missed a game in your five years as starter. Yes, you’ve been criticized for your lack of emotion much the same way Eli used to be around these parts. But it was your father who told you long ago never to let them see you sweat, and you sure haven’t.

But should you play money ball in your Money Bowl and take your team and adopted city back to a Super Bowl for the first time in a dozen seasons, you will get your just deserts. You’ll be the $18 Million Man, if you kindly will allow me to speculate.

A win over Tom Brady and Bill Belichick to get to the Super Bowl? Are you kidding me? At a time when Lewis is retiring and you will be expected to fill that daunting leadership void? When a win over Brady would get you to within one career playoff win of Peyton? When a win over Brady will push you past Eli with your sixth road playoff win?

By the way, a belated congratulations to you and Dana on the birth of your son Stephen Vincent in June (five months before Tom and Gisele welcomed Vivian Lake to the world, for what it’s worth).

The Money Bowl offers you another chance to silence naysayers who cry that you cannot win The Big One. On Sunday night, you’ll have coordinator Jim Caldwell and running back Ray Rice by your side. You’ll have wideout Torrey Smith racing down your deadly long-range missiles. You have completed 30 of 57 passes with five TDs and zero INTs and a 120 QB rating in these playoffs. No wonder why Lewis told you, “You’re the general.”

Matt Ryan was the first quarterback taken in your draft. You were the second. Maybe it will be Matty Ice versus Joe Cool in the Super Bowl. You want to have all of Baltimore wishing you happy birthday from now on? Be Unitas against Brady.