ExtremeRavens Posted January 27 Posted January 27 A Ravens fan wanted to return the favor. A week after two Buffalo Bills fans started a GoFundMe to raise money for a charity supported by Baltimore tight end Mark Andrews following a crushing loss to Buffalo, a teacher at Centennial High School did the same for Bills tight end Dalton Kincaid, who dropped a fourth-down pass in the final two minutes of Sunday’s AFC championship game loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. “That was stuck in my head, what Bills fans had done for Mark,” 34-year-old German teacher Will Funk-Heiser told The Baltimore Sun on Monday. “It was really cool.” The Chiefs held on to win, 32-29, to advance to their fifth Super Bowl in six years as they try to become the first team in NFL history to win three straight championships. The loss, meanwhile, left Kincaid fighting back tears. “It was hanging up there and I just wasn’t able to catch it,” the second-year tight end and former first-round draft pick told reporters Sunday night. “Right now it obviously hurts a lot, and it’s going to linger for a while, but eventually you’ve got to move on. And hopefully you grow from this, and I believe that will be the case, but for the time being, it’s going to hurt a lot.” In the wake of the defeat, the darkest corners of social media reacted predictably and malevolently with a slew of vitriol directed toward Kincaid, who’d made a diving attempt at quarterback Josh Allen’s last-ditch heave before the ball bounded off his outstretched arms and fell incomplete. The two moments involving Andrews and Kincaid and the response of the Bills’ fans struck a chord with Funk-Heiser, who grew up in College Park, is a Maryland alum and is a married father of three young boys, who, along with his wife, are all big Ravens fans. “I’d been thinking about it,” he said. “One of the best things about sports is turning something that’s negative into a good thing.” Which is what prompted him to try to raise money for The Summit Center in Getzville, New York, an organization that provides behavioral health and autism services. Kincaid has been an advocate since 2023 and chose to represent the center as part of the NFL’s “My Cause My Cleats” in each of the past two seasons. According to the center, there was an outpouring on social media to make donations in support of Kincaid after the game from fan bases of the Bills, Ravens and Chiefs. More than 160 donors had done so as of Monday morning, according to WKBW-7 TV in Buffalo. So far, Funk-Heiser’s GoFundMe has raised more than $1,700 from over 80 donors with a goal of $5,000. He’s hoping it will continue to grow. Nicholas Howard and Ryan Patato, the two Canisius University sophomores who started the fundraiser in the wake of Andrews’ drop and Baltimore’s loss to Buffalo earlier this month, eventually raised more than $143,000 for Breakthrough T1D, a type 1 diabetes research and advocacy organization that Andrews, who has type 1 diabetes, supports. “I thought we could try to return the favor,” Funk-Heiser said. “I was hoping it would be something people would be really interested in. “Nobody’s really rooting for Mahomes and the Chiefs to three-peat, anyway.” Have a news tip? Contact Brian Wacker at bwacker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/brianwacker1. View the full article Quote
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