As everyone around here knows, Baltimore is the home office for paranoid football fans.

Each Sunday when the Ravens take the field, their fans are consumed with one singular thought: How will the refs hose us this time?

See, with Ravens fans, it's never a question of whether their team is going to get hosed. It's just a question of how bad the hosing will be.

Will it be a major soul-sucking hosing like the one the Ravens got in their 27-14 loss to the Green Bay Packers, when they were penalized so often you'd have thought it was snowing yellow flags?

Or will it just be your garden-variety hosing, a key call here or there that kills a touchdown pass by Joe Flacco or a big sack by Ray Lewis?

Which brings us to this Sunday's playoff game between the Ravens and New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium, and a certain quarterback long thought to be protected by the officials.

If you've been listening to local sports-talk radio or reading Internet message boards, you know that the paranoia about Tom Brady and the refs has reached a fever pitch.

To hear these fans tell it, Brady will get his usual velvet-ropes treatment from the officials.

He'll give another Emmy-winning performance and flop to the ground if a Ravens pass rusher so much as gives him a hard look, and the ref will immediately reach for his flag.

And when Brady isn't getting the calls because he's Tom Brady, superstar quarterback and fair-haired boy of the NFL, Bill Belichick will get the calls because he's, well, Bill Belichick.

He's the Hooded Genius with the three Super Bowl rings, the scowling Yoda of the Gridiron in front of whom game officials quake and the entire league - maybe with the exception of Rex Ryan - genuflects.

Fortunately for them, the Ravens aren't getting caught up in all this doom and gloom about the officials, especially as it relates to how they'll go after Brady.

At Wednesday's media session at the Castle, Ravens coach John Harbaugh was asked by a Boston reporter about the Ravens' 27-21 loss to the Patriots earlier this season.

That was the game the Ravens drew two controversial personal fouls for hits on Brady, prompting Lewis to say the calls were "embarrassing to the game."

"Given how the last game was officiated up there," the Boston guy asked, "how concerned are you about your team's ability to be aggressive?"

Harbaugh looked at him the way you would look at a fly that just landed in your milkshake.

"Uh," he said finally, "we'll be our natural aggressive self and we'll play. I'm not concerned about that at all."

Sure, Harbaugh doesn't give you a whole lot at these media sessions. He gives you a lot of cliches and coach-speak as every other head coach in the NFL does. But you didn't have to read between the lines with that quote.

What he meant is that the Ravens plan to go after Brady hard. They plan to come at him from every direction and smack him every chance they get - within the rules.

And if they're worried that Brady will get special treatment from the refs, they sure do a good job of hiding it.

"You gotta just play football," linebacker Jarret Johnson said. "You can't worry about the penalties. It's just gonna slow you down, and he's gonna carve you up.

"You definitely want to be mindful when you're around him. But you can't be worried about penalties."

If the Ravens have a shot at Brady and worry too much about flags, defensive end Trevor Pryce said, "you'd take your aggression away. And if you take away how we play the game, what are we? We're the Lions."

Ouch. Up in Detroit, they're stapling that one to the bulletin board right now.

Of course, I don't expect any of this to ease the minds of Ravens fans, who have paranoia in their DNA. But I think the Ravens will find a way to get to Brady without flags flying all over the place.

In fact, with wide receiver Wes Welker out and the Patriots' defense struggling all season against the run, I think the Ravens have an excellent chance to come out of this game with a win.

I make the final score Ravens 21, Patriots 17.

Unless I'm being delusional. Which isn't that far from paranoid when you get right down to it.

Listen to Kevin Cowherd on Tuesdays from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. with Jerry Coleman on Fox 1370 AM Sports.