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Do you like Ray Rice? Do you like when Ray Rice wins awards?
Well, folks, you can help the Ravens' running back win this week's FedEx Ground player of the week award by voting for him at NFL.com/FedEx.
Rice was nominated for the award after rushing 27 times for 133 yards and two touchdowns in the Ravens' 31-17 win over the Broncos on Sunday. He'll need help from his fans in order to take home the Week 5 award and make a $2,000 charitable donation to Safe Kids USA.
After a dominating performance at home last Sunday, Rice and the Ravens will head back to a stadium that they've become pretty familiar with over the last 12 months.
The Ravens visited Gillette Stadium twice last year, losing a 27-21 thriller to the Pats in the regular season, and then putting a 33-14 beatdown on Tom Brady and company in the Wild Card round of the playoffs.
The Patriots look a little different on the offensive side of the ball now than they did during that matchup in January. Heck, they look a little different on the offensive side of the ball now than they did a week ago.
In case you've been living under a rock the last few weeks (or a couple thousand feet of rocks, like those Chilean miners), Randy Moss was traded to the Vikings, leaving New England without one of the most explosive playmakers in the game, and also without a guy who some reports indicate was becoming an issue in the locker room.
While the first thought is that the Ravens caught a break because they won't have to face Moss, head coach John Harbaugh said that the Moss trade might actually make it tougher for the Ravens to prepare for the Patriots this week.
They don't have any tape on what New England's offense looks like without the seven-time Pro Bowl wide receiver, Harbaugh says, which will make the Ravens the NFL's guinea pigs this week.
"I think with Randy you kind of knew [how to defend them], and pretty much people were starting to play them in a similar way," Harbaugh said. "What does that mean? How are we going to defend them? Who's the deep threat? It's going to be Brandon Tate for sure. He can run. He's a threat."
Tate, a second-year man out of North Carolina, is a big-play guy out wide who will be responsible for trying to pick up some of the slack that will be left with Moss' departure. Deion Branch, who the Pats traded for earlier this week, will also help fill that void. Branch played with New England from 2002-2005, and he knows how things operate in that system.
It's safe to say that neither of those guys is anywhere near as dangerous as Randy Moss, but Harbaugh says the Ravens aren't looking at it like that.
"Obviously, they feel very good about their offensive weapons or they wouldn't have done [the Moss trade]," Harbaugh said. "No team ever does something to make themselves weaker. They feel like this is going to make them stronger short term and long term. That's why they've done it, and we'll be the first team to find out what their plan is. And they've got an extra week to get ready, to put that thing together, and I'm sure that's not by coincidence."
