BALTIMORE – Terrell Suggs(notes) sat on a lounge chair in a crowded restaurant Monday night, devouring a calamari appetizer and baiting Tom Brady(notes) as only he can.

Suggs, the Ravens' star pass rusher – not to mention the NFL's loudest Brady-basher – had filled out his Pro Bowl ballot earlier that day. He was asked who he'd selected at the quarterback position.

"Philip Rivers(notes)," he answered. "Peyton Manning(notes)."

He paused for effect. "And Ryan Fitzpatrick(notes)."

Um, no Brady, he of the 31 touchdowns, four interceptions and league-best 109.9 passer rating – not to mention an October victory over Suggs' team?

[Male model: Tom Brady’s un-athletic footwear contract]

Suggs shrugged. "I'm pretty sure he didn't vote for me, either," he said of the Patriots' MVP candidate.

The player known as T-Sizzle has been hot for all things New England since Baltimore knocked the Pats out of the playoffs last January in a blowout Suggs described as a "humbling ass-whippin.' "

He and Brady

He lay face down on the snowy turf, a 41-year-old legend in the closing stages of a career that lasted one season too long. In what might have been his final play, Brett Favre(notes), perhaps poetically, was at one with the frozen tundra, a metaphorical domain he once owned like no other.

Down and blacked out after being spun facemask-first into the turf by Chicago Bears defensive end Corey Wootton(notes) early in the second quarter of a game his team would lose 40-14, Favre, too, appeared frozen, yet another unexpected scene from a surreal NFL season.

Viewers everywhere – especially in Green Bay, where Favre once dominated in frigid conditions – were filled with conflicting emotions Monday night. Watching in a crowded Baltimore restaurant, Ravens All-Pro pass rusher Terrell Suggs(notes) burst out into laughter at the sight of the Minnesota Vikings' quarterback in a prone, motionless position. It didn't seem to be personal, other than the fact that Suggs hunts passers for a living and

BALTIMORE – For all they had accomplished in 2010, the Baltimore Ravens went into Sunday's showdown with the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints as a team widely defined by its shortcomings.

Halfback Ray Rice(notes), to the chagrin of fantasy players with high draft picks everywhere, hadn't enjoyed the breakout season many had predicted, something largely attributed to lackluster line play. Defensively, Ray Lewis(notes) and friends had experienced some conspicuous breakdowns, narrowly surviving a Monday night meltdown in Houston in the team's most recent outing.

To much of the outside world, it looked as though Baltimore had hit a wall.

Naturally, the Ravens put their heads down and smashed right through it, bullying their way to a 30-24 victory over the Saints at M&T Bank Stadium that re-established their credentials as legitimate championship contenders.

And then they reminded anyone in earshot that when they play the way they did on Sunday, they're a team no opponent

A year ago, it was all about perfection. Heading into the third-to-last week of the 2009 regular season, the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts were 13-0 teams on a Super Bowl collision course, and everybody had an opinion about whether they should rest their starters or make a run at history.

The debate turned out to be moot: After a Thursday night victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars pushed Indy to 14-0, the Saints and Colts combined to lose the rest of their games – until, you know, they actually mattered. By the time February rolled around, the whole playoff-momentum theory had been irrevocably laid to waste, not that it will stop anyone from citing it the next time a team clinches early.

Still, I like the way the 2010 regular season has played out much better. Perfection was never an issue – every team had lost by Week 5 (the 3-0 Chiefs, who had an early bye, were the last survivors) – and the division races have been closely contested throughout, even in the miserable

For the first time since Derek Anderson's(notes) Fatwa Against Funny in the Arizona desert late last month, the NFL's most pathetic division will be back in the national spotlight Thursday when the 49ers face the Chargers at Qualcomm Stadium.

A little factoid that tells you all you need to know: The 5-8 Niners are still very much a player in the four-pronged, three-legged race for the NFC West title and the home playoff game that comes with it, even if they lose to their favored hosts on Thursday.

Yes, football fans, we could very well have a 7-9 division champion in 2010, which would be the first time in a non-strike season that a sub-.500 team would see the postseason. In other words: Welcome to the NHL, and be sure not to press your turned-up noses too closely against the glass.

In fact, if a sardonic convergence of delicious outcomes plays out over the season's final three weeks, the division champ could be even worse than 7-9.

Here's what I'm envisioning, in the interest of

When something has been so good for so long, those of us who follow pro football tend to have a hyperawareness toward perceived proof of impending demise. On Monday night, there was an eerie coalescence of two such end-of-an-era-tinged stories: The cessation of Brett Favre's(notes) incredible consecutive-starts streak at 297 games, and the collapse of the Baltimore Ravens' defensive aura, which is to say Ray Lewis'(notes) relentless and maniacal mystique.

The Favre story panned out: The 41-year-old quarterback couldn't feel his right hand, stood on the sideline of Monday's relocated game between the Vikings and Giants at Detroit's Ford Field and afterward sounded like a man who really, truly, finally may have thrown the last pass of his incredible career.

That dissolution of the Ravens' defense thing? Not so much.

After an overtime that ended with a gut-wrenching finality for the Texans and a triumphant show of defiance from the valiant visitors, the scoreboard read Baltimore 34,

SAN DIEGO – When Philip Rivers(notes) showed up for work at Qualcomm Stadium on Sunday, he might as well have had a backpack full of boulders strapped over his shoulders. Coming off his worst performance of a stellar individual season, the San Diego Chargers' quarterback knew he needed a swift and pronounced turnaround to lead his team to victory over the AFC West-leading Kansas City Chiefs and keep its postseason hopes alive.

Because, let's face it: If Rivers doesn't bring his "A" game, the 2010 Chargers usually fail.

Though no NFL player carries more of a personal burden toward his team's success – I'd argue that the Packers' Aaron Rodgers(notes) and the Colts' Peyton Manning(notes) are other elite quarterbacks in similarly loaded circumstances, and that's about it – you won't hear Rivers discussing it publicly. For all of his notorious on-the-field bravado, the seventh-year passer tends to downplay his role as the sun of San Diego's solar system, just as he does his best to put a

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When the Philadelphia Eagles face the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday Night Football, there's going to be a Jason Garrett lovefest, with deserved praise heaped upon the interim coach who has guided a once-devoid-of-pulse Dallas team to a 3-1 record.

Yet from my vantage point, the big man in the black shirt on the opposite sideline could use a metaphorical bear hug too.

If you ask me to list my NFL Coach of the Year candidates with four weeks remaining in the 2010 regular season – or even if you don't – I'm starting with Andy Reid, who put himself on the line last spring by trading his longtime franchise quarterback and, so far, has delivered in a way nobody envisioned.

Trading Donovan McNabb(notes) to the division-rival Redskins on Easter Sunday and putting his offense in the hands of third-year passer Kevin Kolb(notes) was bold. Adapting to the stunning events of September – which saw Kolb look overwhelmed in his first start before