The NFL today is a business. You take the fan side out of it and you see players not staying with the same franchise throughout their career more frequent than ever before because of the direction of the business model within the NFL. From the fans' perspective, they're going to say, 'Wow! Steve's in Tennessee playing for another team, but not just another team, but one of the franchises most hated rivals.' In that regard it's going to be weird, it's a different time, a different era for the game right now.
Looking at the match-up, obviously, and you have two teams going in different directions. You have the Baltimore Ravens who are loaded both offensively and defensively with Steve McNair in the mix. And then you've got the Tennessee Titans who have a young talented core, but they're still trying to find out who they are in terms of identity.
But it's homecoming for Steve since he'll be coming back to Tennessee for the first time. It's going to be interesting just to see how the fans are going to react. I don't think that they will boo him. I think that they will cheer him because he didn't leave on bad terms with the fans.
I think it's a game that everybody is anxious to see. They want to see Steve do well. People that I have talked to in town are not Baltimore Ravens fans, but they're looking forward to seeing the game because of the rivalry we built when we were in the AFC Central with Baltimore. They also want to see our guys Samari Rolle and Derrick Mason. That's the bottom line and it brings back memories between the two organizations.
Every time we played Baltimore it was intense. It was something memorable about every match-up against that team. I can remember one of them in 2000 when they beat us at home. We left everything out on the field that day, but we still left disappointed and empty handed. That was a difficult game because it was the two best teams in the NFL going head up. They came into the game with one of the best defenses in the NFL and we had one of the best defenses in the NFL. It was a hard fought war. It wasn't a game, it was personal.
Obviously, they went on to win the Super Bowl, but that was one of the most memorable games that I can remember. Also, my last year in Tennessee was memorable because we went into Baltimore and beat them in a playoff game. That was one of my highlights. Every match-up I played against that team even before both teams were recognized among the elite in the NFL, it was always a great battle because we didn't like each other on the field, but we had a great respect for each other as well.
