Let's just come out and say it: maybe the Ravens caught a break today in the aftermath of Tom Brady's mysterious early-morning car crash up in Boston.

The New England Patriots quarterback apparently walked away from the wreck involving his Audi sedan and a passenger van with nothing more than a few shards of glass in his hair.

In fact, he was feeling so chipper than he was filmed laughing and joking at practice, no small feat after the high-impact accident that witnesses reported "sounded like thunder."

And how is that a break for the Ravens? Because their AFC North rivals, the Cincinnati Bengals, play the Patriots Sunday at Gillette Stadium.

And a healthy Tom Brady calling signals -- even if he's still picking glass out of that thick mop at kickoff  -- makes it that much harder for the Bengals to win.

There are few organizations on earth more secretive than Bill Belichick's Patriots -- maybe the NSA and that outfit in Langley, Va., qualify.

So not much is known about the circumstances behind Brady's accident, except that it was serious enough that a man in the van had to be extricated from the wreck using the Jaws of Life.

But Brady? He showed up at practice without any visible abrasions and told his teammates he felt fine.

We'll see how he plays Sunday and whether he suffers from any lingering symptoms.

Right now, if I were the Bengals, I wouldn't count on it.