Meanwhile, in the other locker room, Romo answered questions about how in the world the Cowboys managed to hold the ball for 40:03 on the road in a 60-minute game and lose. “It’s just hard when you do a lot of good things well and don’t come out with a win,” Romo said, shaking his head in disbelief and searching for the right words. “It eats at you and sits in the pit of your stomach when you lose.”
His boss, Dallas owner Jerry Jones, summed up his frustration: “I’m sick about losing this game.”
o o o
Strangely, the day after the Ravens win over the Cowboys it didn’t feel much like a win for John Harbaugh.
Everyone left the stadium pretty certain that Lardarius Webb blew his right ACL, and the Ray Lewis rumors swirled into Sunday night, with football fans seeing the replays and wondering just how bad his arm was injured. Knowing that he didn’t come back onto the field in the final two minutes, especially considering the stakes and the kind of drive it was, spoke volumes about the severity of the injury and his pain. Harbaugh wasn’t coy after the game, but he didn’t want to make any final pronouncements before Lewis was fully examined.
He took the podium in Owings Mills on Monday afternoon:
“A couple of announcements on injuries,” he said. “We had a number of minor things that guys are tweaking right now that should be fine. But, the two major things: ‘Webby’ [Lardarius Webb] does indeed have an ACL tear. So, he’ll be out for the season, and Ray [Lewis] has a triceps tear – a complete tear. So, he’ll be out for the season. We just found that out in the last five minutes.”
Obviously, the next question from every Baltimore Ravens fan in the world wanted to know about a 37-year old Hall of Famer: “Does this mean that we’ve seen the last of Ray Lewis?”
“I’m not going to make any comment on that,” Harbaugh said. “I understand you asking it. That’s for Ray to speak on. I admire Ray Lewis. I’ve said that many times. Everybody in this room does. Anybody that knows him feels that way about him. So, I’ll be looking forward to seeing what he says about that.”
When general manager Ozzie Newsome got the confirmation on Lewis he knew he had a never-before-used option at his disposal to potentially keep his legendary linebacker available if he could make a miraculous comeback from an injury believed to be a 12-to-14 week healing and rehab period. It made very few headlines when the NFL competition committee recommended a rule change on May 22, 2012 and when it was reported at SI.com, it wasn’t even its own sentence: “The owners also voted to move the trading deadline from after Week 6 to after Week 8, and to allow one “marquee” player placed on injured reserve to return to practice after the sixth week of the schedule and to the lineup after the eighth week. That player must be on the 53-man roster after the final preseason cut.”
New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft spoke on the record about the spirit of the rule. “It’s good because I think it keeps the excitement in the game,” Kraft said. “I know when we lost Tom Brady there was a feeling he could have come back at the end of the year. It would have been great for the fans, and I think every team has someone in that category.”
Because every phrase in every contract needs the blessing of the NFL Players Association, and after the labor war of 2011 everything is bargaining chip, the new rule took all summer to get ratified. After a summer full of negotiations about padded practices, moving the trading deadline and leverage for the sake of leverage, finally, on August 29th the rule change was reported in The New York Times: “The new injured reserve rule will allow teams to bring back one player during the season if that player was put on injured reserve during the regular season. The player must have sustained a “major” injury – defined as missing at least six weeks. The player would have to be designated as eligible to return when he is placed on injured reserve. He can return to practice after six weeks and can be activated after eight weeks. All other players put on injured reserve during the season are out for the year.”
When the injury happened, Lewis asked his doctor, “Has anybody ever come back from this?” She said, “No.”
Lewis said, “I’ll be back.” She said, “Ray, it’s totally off the bone.”
Lewis reiterated his point, “You can’t tell me it’s over. Not in Year 17. I promise you, I’ll be back this year.”
The next day Lewis called Ozzie Newsome and discussed the injury and his prospects for returning for a potential postseason run. Despite their obvious warts, the Ravens were 5-1, and there was no reason to believe they wouldn’t be participating in their fifth consecutive January tournament. And Lewis was trying to convince Newsome that there was no way an injury that doctors said would take 12-to-14 weeks would take him any more than 8-to-10 weeks. Newsome had been around Ray Lewis far too many years to argue with him, doubt him, or bet against him.
Lewis said to Newsome: “Don’t put me on IR!”
Newsome said: “What do you mean?”
“Trust me, I will be back,” Lewis told Newsome. “I’m not going out like this. I’m not walking out on my boys like that.”
Quite frankly, this new rule – one that Newsome had personally endorsed and been a part of instituting during the previous offseason for this very reason or circumstance – made the decision easy. Had this injury happened in any previous season in the history of the NFL, and this new IR rule not been ratified just six weeks earlier, Newsome would’ve been in a very tough spot and it would’ve been an even tougher conversation with Lewis, Harbaugh, and probably Bisciotti.. Before the 2012 season, the Ravens would’ve had to play with a 52-man roster and eat the extra spot every week, or place Lewis on injured reserve. He would be ineligible to return, not even in the postseason.
But such was the serendipity of the Ravens’ Super Bowl XLVII run. A new rule was established that gave Lewis a fighting chance, the hope to return. And there’s nothing Ray Lewis likes more than a good old, fashioned physical challenge. You can almost hear Ray saying, “It’s never been done before? Good. I’ll be the first to do it!”
Replacing Ray Lewis was clearly impossible, but the Ravens did have Dannell Ellerbe in the fold, and an improving young player in Albert McClellan coming along. It appeared that Terrell Suggs would be making it onto the field much sooner than expected from his Achilles tear, and Courtney Upshaw, Paul Kruger, and Jameel McClain were all improving.
And as valuable as Lewis was spiritually, if not so much on 3rd down passing plays at this point in his career, the loss of Webb on the corner was a more devastating loss in a tactical sense. The Ravens felt that Webb was becoming a shutdown player, one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL.
“To me, Lardarius, he’d become one of the premier corners in the league,” Harbaugh said. “I’m biased. I’d say he’s the best. Maybe some other people would question that, but I don’t question it. I see him every day. I wouldn’t take anybody over Lardarius Webb. He will be back. He’s been through this before. He will rehab like crazy, and he’ll be back next year stronger than ever. He’s just that kind of guy.”
