Shane Vereen

About Baltimore Sun staff picks: Each week, Sun columnists and NFL reporters will pick games (not against the spread) Sunday's games 49ers at Falcons Ravens at Patriots Kevin Cowherd Last week: 2-2 Overall: 177-86-1 49ers 27, Falcons 21:...

You want story lines for Sunday's AFC championship game? Oh, do we have storylines. Here are just a few: Are the Ravens really this team of destiny we keep hearing about? Can they avenge last year's 23-20 loss to the New England Patriots in this...

RAVENS PASSING GAME: Joe Flacco brings a hot hand and some past successes against the New England Patriots into his third AFC championship game. In his past three games against New England, Flacco has completed 70 percent of his passes and thrown for...

After allowing more than 180 rushing yards in three straight games, including a franchise-worst 227 yards in a Week 6 win over the Dallas Cowboys, the last place the Ravens defenders wanted to be during their bye week was a dark film room. "I was just...

Having grown up in Annapolis, Bill Belichick remembers watching quarterback Johnny Unitas, one of the NFL's pioneers of the pass, drive the Baltimore Colts up and down the field with their version of the two-minute drill. At the time, no one did it...

Kevin Cowherd Patriots 30, Ravens 21 The Ravens go into this game with enormous confidence. But Tom Brady to Wes Welker is a tough combination to beat, especially at Gillette Stadium. And now the Pats actually have a running game with Stevan Ridley...

Over the course of an NFL season, a lot of things get talked about. Some factors are overblown, some aren’t addressed enough. Sunday’s 41-28 win over the Texans by the Patriots in the divisional round of the playoffs gave us ample reason...

Brendon Ayanbadejo put his foot in his mouth Sunday ... or whatever the modern-day equivalent is when someone types something without thinking it through and then sends it out for the world to see via Twitter. In the case of the Baltimore special...

Shane Vereen probably wasn't known to many people who tuned in nationwide for the AFC divisional playoff game between New England and Houston on Sunday. But the little-used Valencia High grad made his presence known early and often after Patriots...

Every morning, Monday through Friday, blogger Matt Vensel will hook you up with reading material -- mostly on the Ravens but with some other Baltimore sports stuff, too -- to skim through as you slug down coffee and slack off at the start of your workday....

— J.J. Watt may have spit on the Patriots' midfield logo before this AFC divisional playoff game, but it is Wes Welker who continues, game after game, year after year, to spit in the face of football convention. Running back Shane Vereen may have...

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- The New England Patriots, bidding to go to their sixth Super Bowl in the past 12 years, are back in the AFC championship game. Now, they'll have to get by without star tight end Rob Gronkowski. Gronkowski, who returned from a broken...