National Football League

Sunday school on tap;Both teams have plenty to learn

Published Oct. 15, 2010 10:11 p.m. ET

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FOXBORO - Regardless of the outcome, Sunday is a statement game. What makes it interesting is that no one can be totally sure what those statements will be, and that includes the Baltimore Ravens and Patriots.

With the beatdown the Ravens put on the Pats at Gillette Stadium last January, it seemed a torch had been passed. But until teams like the Ravens, Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Jets clearly establish that a new day has dawned they must yet contend with both the reality of the team Bill Belichick is laboring to rebuild on the fly and the aura that has for so long surrounded it. To do less is to burn your fingers on that torch rather than grab it.

If you win three Super Bowls in four years and dominate a decade of football your reputation precedes you everywhere you go. That is why, when the Ravens arrive at Gillette, they will understand they still have something to prove to a Pats team that seems a defensive shell of what it was.

If Baltimore comes in and dominates the line of scrimmage again and leaves with another victory, perhaps it will have convinced itself there is a new sheriff in the AFC. But until that happens they will come here clearly understanding one thing: If you challenge the king you must kill the king, and one off day in January doesn't get that done.

''This is a huge game for us,'' Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis conceded. ''Everybody knows at the end of the year New England is going to be up there, fighting for the playoff berth and things like that. So for us to go up there and beat them, or try to get a victory at New England, is going to be huge. It's one of the matchups that you always say - here you go. You know exactly what you get.''

Most of the time the Ravens, who are 0-5 against the Patriots during the regular season, have gotten a beating. They've lost high-scoring games (46-38), blowouts (24-3) and tight-as-a-coffin games (27-24, 27-21). They've lost to Tom Brady and to his predecessor, Drew Bledsoe. They have yet to find a way to escape with a regular-season victory, and until they do, that playoff win will be seen as an anomaly not a statement.

''You've got to think about these kinds of games,'' Ravens running back Ray Rice said. ''We don't want to single out the Patriots, but the success that they've had, you can't forget that. They have a long-term history of success.

''They've won Super Bowls. We've won one in the past; they've won many. So, obviously, this kind of game you don't really have to ramp yourself up for. You get up there to New England, you come into that stadium and you feed off their environment.''

Whatever that environment is Sunday everyone in it will be seeing a game that will say a lot about the Ravens and just as much about the Patriots, who, though 3-1, seem to lack the total self-assurance of past teams.

That is natural because it's a time of transition in New England, the unraveling of a dynasty and the knitting together of what will follow it. To beat the Ravens, who are 4-1 with road wins against the Steelers and Jets, would be a reminder to all those intending to bury them that they should bring a lunch pail because it may take a while.

Conversely, if this becomes a repeat of what happened in January, that also would be a statement, and not one the Patriots are interested in making. What it would say is that they have sunk a notch below the best after losing to both the Jets and Ravens. Perhaps they have, but Baltimore still must prove that to the only people in the stadium who count - the players staring at them from across the line of scrimmage, and, just as importantly, themselves.

''We know how hard it is to play them and to play there and about what kind of program they've been what they stand for and all that,'' Ravens coach John Harbaugh said of the Pats. ''Why they feel that way doesn't matter to us.''

Why they feel that way is obvious. Whether the Baltimore Ravens can do anything to change their opinion will say more about how this season will go for both of them than either side might want to admit.