The Ravens are an amazing study in calm as they go about preparing for Sunday's playoff game against the Kansas City Chiefs.

The daily cornhole games in the middle of the locker room feature the usual hilarious trash-talking and bet-making.

 Veterans like Derrick Mason, Ray Lewis and Anquan Boldin circulate around the room ragging each other, cracking jokes and keeping everyone loose.

 John Harbaugh and his coaching staff deal affably and politely with the media, adhering to the unspoken code of all NFL coaches, which is to say a lot and reveal absolutely nothing when the TV cameras and microphones are switched on.

 Practices are spirited, but not crazy-intense. Meetings are brief and business-like. The players go back to their homes and families at the end of the day just like millions of other American workers. 

This is what being in the playoffs three years in a row can do for a team. The Ravens know exactly how to prepare for a big game, which is essentially the same way they prepare for every game, with the exact same diligence and routine, said Harbaugh.

"We're a football team," he says. "We like routine."

 Joe Flacco, the laid-back quarterback, talked yesterday about how spoiled the Ravens are, in the sense that given all their recent success and their 12-4 record this season, they now expect to be in the playoffs every year.

But then he says something that reveals the mindset of this veteran team, and the key to this serene scene at the Castle all week.

"When the whistle blows," Flacco says of Sunday's meeting with the Chiefs, "it's just another football game."