The Chuckstrong Colts' playoff debut, the "last ride" of Ray Lewis or the rookie quarterback showdown in the Beltway? Take your pick but Day 2 of Wild Card Weekend comes loaded with compelling story lines.
For anyone who found the opening day to Wild Card Weekend to be uninspiring, the Indianapolis Colts and Baltimore Ravens are here to remedy that at 1 p.m. in Charm City. Even if the elimination game in Baltimore turns out to be as uneven as the action in Houston and at Lambeau, the Pagano and Lewis angles will bring enough drama to eventually warrant an NFL Films voiceover of this one.
Although the Ravens are favored at home, the upstart Colts have defied expectations all year long, rallying around Pagano, who was diagnosed with leukemia earlier in the season. With his cancer in remission, Pagano is back on the sideline and back in Baltimore, where he had been the defensive coordinator before taking the head coaching job in Indy.
"We know they're playing for something outside of football, sometimes you live for something outside of football," Ravens cornerback Cary Williams told The Baltimore Sun. "For those guys to be behind him, here's a guy who's going to fight every week. He's dealing with some things and their team wasn't even predicted to be in the playoffs. For those guys to overcome the odds the way their head coach has done it's awesome, but we got to handle our business. Business as usual."
Of course, it won't really be business as usual for the Ravens this week. How could it after Lewis announced that he'll be retiring after the team's playoff run comes to end?
"Everything that starts has an end," the 37-year-old Lewis told reporters earlier in the week. "For me, today, I told my team that this will be my last ride."
In the second game of the day, it's all about beginnings rather than endings. Rookie quarterbacks RG3 and Russell Wilson take center stage at FedEx Field as the Redskins and Seahawks duel it out.
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