deterrent to fans wanting to watch football. Sure, you might feel a little guilty watching these guys potentially do permanent damage to their brains or bodies – but it’s football, it’s a real man’s game, we’re American and we love it!
So, the NFL has some inherent, multi-faceted, deep fissures that plague it like any household, family, business or entity that has human issues in a changing society with contrasting opinions, needs, beliefs, rules, laws, religion and politics.
Oh, and one more piece of The Ghost of Baltimore Football Past and how it relates to The Present in addition to the Ray Rice wife beating fiasco is the full story of jurisprudence and Ravens players over 22 years.
It is certainly a very low bar of expectation that the players on any NFL team or professional sports franchise – for whom handsome compensation, fame, admiration and mojo level in the public space makes for a nice lifestyle – stay out of jail and away from troubles with the law.
No one expects their football team to be 53 choirboys. But you shouldn’t expect their next stop to be prison.
Brutal reminder: this city looked the other way on Ray Lewis in a way no one did anywhere else.
Most of America sees Ray Lewis and remembers the orange jumpsuit.
Any time No. 52 stepped off the bus in any city, he was very loudly and often vividly reminded of a bloody night in Atlanta that stayed with him and certainly will again all of next year as he is rightfully elected, and then inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The two men who died that night were from Akron, Ohio. The bust of Ray Lewis will reside in Canton. Like I said, that story will never go away.
“Obstruction of justice” will always be a part of his story and the Ravens story.
So will the statue of Ray Lewis in front of the stadium and the two parades.
So, to touch once more upon the Ghost of Football Past, the expectations of a big PSL investment and buying tickets is a big-league professional commitment to have solid citizens and to keep your players out of jail. The Ravens avoided a massive mistake in opting to draft Jonathan Ogden over Lawrence Phillips on April 19, 1996 and that changed everything about the course of the journey. Two hours later, they drafted Ray Lewis.
But Ray Lewis and Jamal Lewis in orange jumpsuits and handcuffs and every other purple transgression off the field and in the community is as much a part of the Ravens legacy and story as the two parades.
Fair is fair. It hasn’t been a purple fantasyland or storybook in many respects – including the green road paved with civic money that swept the team away from Cleveland in 1995 and pissed off everyone from Bob Costas to Bob Trumpy. As Art Modell once so eloquently put it: “I didn’t come to Baltimore for the crab cakes.”
It’s a tangled web – the somewhat seedy and rocky history of Baltimore Ravens football, where even the logo artwork endured a bitter court dispute in an infamous lawsuit that changed the helmets on the field before the turn of the century.
But the one constant over nearly a quarter of a century had been the unwavering support and local pride of the marketplace and population for the Baltimore Ravens brand. The games were always sold out. The swag proudly worn with civic pride. Purple Fridays were a real visceral thing. The home field advantage was truly an advantage every time an opposing quarterback tried to huddle.
But as I have written in two “Baltimore fairy tale” books, those championships and parades and memories and stories are also real, permanent and meaningful to our collective experience.
The Baltimore Ravens have mattered in our lives.
And in a profound and significant way – like an extended family member and an emotional bond that feels eternal. And the fans – for the most – have looked the other way about the many transgressions of the Ravens players or whatever their beefs have been over the years because the team has filled them with a reason to cheer and the pride of quality football and championships.
And I will also say that both Ray Lewis and Jamal Lewis (and hundreds of other Ravens players and alumni) have done hundreds – if not thousands – of good deeds, good work and have displayed the kind of community commitment and humanity to me and my family over the years that would make you very proud if you know what my eyes have seen.
All of these issues and indiscretions and embarrassments and “scars on the record” of the 22 years of Baltimore Ravens football existed before September 24th.
So, I believe in the aftermath of Ray Rice, this was chess not checkers in regard to public relations and the temperature of the fan base long before the infamous
