Suck it, Matt Stover!

The Baltimore Sun is reporting that the Ravens and kicker Matt Stover have parted ways and Stover will not be returning to Baltimore in 2009.

Matt Stover is a great guy (I actually hope he hooks on somewhere) and a good kicker but pardon me when I say, "Suck it, Matt Stover!"

Why the angst? Why the excitement over a 41 year old kicker being released? Well, for the educated Browns fan it is simple.

Stover was the last Ravens player on their roster to play for the original incarnation of the Cleveland Browns in 1995. The last one. For what seems like the last five years.

Annoyingly every CBS Sports announcer, I am looking squarely at you Dick Enberg, loved to bring up this fact once a game, if not more, whenever Stover took the field to kick-off, attempt a field goal or extra point. It's been thirteen seasons since the transgression took place but it seemed like every time I turned on a game, that fact was brought up.

No longer. And it is refreshing. Vinny Interceptaverde moved on years ago. Earnest Byner was forgiven and was inducted into the Cleveland Browns Legends Hall of Fame. Many other has long since left the Eastern Shore. Yes, Benedict Ozzie is still in Baltimore but I will give him props for only signing Browns gear despite working for the Ratbirds.

But the last on the field connection is gone. The franchises have their own separate lineage and history. Sorry Matt Stover but suck it long and suck it hard. I don't know of anything else that could make me happier right now...

... unless YOU KNOW WHO were to bite it.