The cold weather, slaying the beasts of Manning and Elway, Flacco throwing the big pass, Jones catching the most unlikely touchdown throw you’d ever see in a true season-on-the-brink escape, Graham’s interception of Manning in overtime, Tucker’s clutch kick in the second OT – this game had all of the markings of an instant classic and one that would be discussed for years given the drama.
“When you look back at it and be able to recap, and let the emotions calm down, it will probably be one of the greatest victories in Ravens history,” Lewis said with no hyperbole. “It’s partly because of the way everything was stacked up against us coming in. I challenged my team, this week, to not listen to anything outside of our building, to buy into who we are as a team – everything we’ve been through, injury-wise. Now for us to be here, I think this will go down as one of the greatest victories in Ravens history.”
The game was tied five times with four lead changes. No team ever led by more than seven points. And they’d exchanged body blows into their sixth stanza on a day when it registered below zero during the postgame media briefings. Even Tucker’s winning kick was dicey, just clearing the right upright by a few feet.
“We grabbed hands and I said ‘no weapon formed against us shall prosper,’ ” Lewis said. “We just kept fighting, kept fighting until that last kick went through. What makes a team is true belief, and we had true belief in each other.”
Rice said what many who had observed the Baltimore Ravens were saying:
“We’re just a team of destiny,” Rice said. “It wasn’t pretty, but it was us. We’ll take this as far as we can take it. It’s Ray’s last ride. Why not send him off the right way? These are the games we used to lose, and now we’re finding a way to win them. Just a team of destiny. A team of destiny.
“I think we’re the only group of people who believed we could do it. It’s my first win against Peyton Manning. It’ll be a sweet plane ride home.”
In the locker room, Harbaugh tried to find words to express the emotions of the moment.
“That football game did the game of football proud,” he said. “I’m just proud and grateful to have a chance to be associated with this game. Humbled for the opportunity to stand on the sideline in a football game like that. Grateful for the opportunity to stand with a bunch of men that, through an incredible amount of adversity, stood together and never wavered and never cracked. A punt return to start the game; a kickoff return to start the second half; enumerable plays back and forth in a battle –our guys did not crack. I credit it to the faith this team has in their Lord above. Whoever that is for each one of our guys, a trust and a faith in a greater power, a spiritual strength that is just throughout our football team, and I just have to say that.”
Rice kept repeating his initial line for anyone who wanted to hear it.
“We are the team of destiny,” he said. “I’ll say it again. We are a team of destiny.”
“To go through what we’ve gone through the last couple of years, we want to get over the hump,” Reed said. “This story is still being written.”
All were fatigued after spending almost five hours battling for their season on a 5-degree day when the temperature dipped even lower in the second half after the sunset.
“I feel like a defensive lineman has been sitting on my chest all day,” tight end Ed Dickson said. “I’m wondering when I’m going to be able to breath normally again.”
It was extremely unusual that Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti was not in the winning locker room. He had been battling the flu all weekend and had to cancel his plans at the last minute to come to Denver. He was just too ill.
When Harbaugh was coming off the sidelines immediately after greeting Broncos head coach John Fox at midfield for a congratulatory handshake, team security director Darren Sanders gave him his mobile device and told him to read the most recent text, which arrived about an hour earlier, in the fourth quarter.
Harbaugh saw the text and when the team gathered in the locker room underneath Mile High Stadium, thawing from the cold, he began his post-game speech with a vote of confidence from Bisciotti, who had text him a special message. Reading straight from his phone in the aftermath of the victory, Harbaugh said:
“I’ve never texted you during a game. We are down 35-28. And I think it’s the best game I’ve ever seen us in the playoffs since 2000. Win or lose I am so proud of the team and proud of you.”
Bisciotti knew that he had a team full of men who almost welcomed adversity in some strange way. Individually, so many had come from backgrounds where the odds were as stacked against them as being behind seven points with a minute left to play and needing to go 70 yards in some miraculous way.
Many of these guys were already walking miracles – through health issues, childhood issues, poverty issues, educational issues and political battles – they were in the NFL and still scrapping so they had already overcome plenty of obstacles. In many ways, it just reaffirmed who these “Mighty Men” were and why they were recruited by Newsome in the first place.
“That was just something I thought the team needed to hear,” Harbaugh said of Bisciotti text message. “[Bisciotti] is a great leader. The players love him. They love when he’s around. He’s an inspiration to all of our guys – to me, to this organization. He sets the tone here. It’s a great organization because of his vision. The guys needed to hear that at that moment, and I tell you, I think they appreciated it.”
The Ravens had heroes all over the field, but two of the key performers were players who Newsome found in the offseason that other teams had jettisoned. Corey Graham had two interceptions – one for a touchdown and one that was the turning point at the end of the first overtime session that got the Ravens in range to win the game. Jacoby Jones simply made the biggest play of his life in running as “fast as _ _ _ _ .”
“Those guys [Corey and Jacoby] always say, ‘thanks for the opportunity,’ they always say that,” Harbaugh said. “And I’m like, ‘thank you, thanks for coming. Thanks for being part of us.’ Even today they both said, ‘Thanks for the opportunity.’ There’s a lot of great guys in this league that don’t always get an opportunity and those two have gotten it this year and made the most of it.”
Graham was truly grateful that Newsome and Harbaugh believed in him enough as a special teamer from his work in Chicago to allow him a chance to play cornerback when Lardarius Webb was injured. On this day, Graham battled Peyton Manning and won.
“I knew from the beginning it was the best decision I ever made in my life [signing with the Ravens],” Graham said. “Well, one of the best, probably marrying my wife was the best. I knew from the beginning it was a great decision. Coach Harbaugh gives guys a chance to come out and play. He told me before I signed here that if I deserved to play I would. He is a man of his word. He has given me the opportunity to play and that is all I’ve asked for.”
And for every hero there is a goat. Many of the Ravens vividly recall that same feeling in Foxborough just 51 weeks earlier, when it was Billy Cundiff and Lee Evans in their locker room. On the other side of the stadium, that feeling was sinking in for all associated with Denver. Broncos free safety Rahim Moore was taking full responsibility in trying to answer how Jones got so loose behind him on the biggest play of the year.
“It was my fault,” Moore said. “If they wouldn’t have scored on us on the last play, we’d be in here rejoicing, so if people don’t like me after that, I’m sorry. That is my fault, and I am going to take full responsibility for it. When the play was on the line, I didn’t make it for our team. If I would’ve made that play, we would be in here rejoicing. It went by me personally, and I felt like I should have made that play for this team, and I didn’t do it today. It is my fault plain and simple. I just misjudged it. I let it get over my head first of all, and I didn’t do what I do best which is watch the flight of the ball, and I didn’t do that right. I didn’t capitalize, and it hurt us. I’m speechless right now. I don’t even know what to say.”
Meanwhile, Manning – the guy who came to Denver to win a Super Bowl – committed the ultimate sin when he tried to force a ball into Stokley that gave Graham a chance to be a hero.
“[It was] a very disappointing finish to the game,” Manning said. “You can go through a lot of plays—certainly offensively—that you’d like to have back; [that] I’d like to have back. Certainly, we did a lot of good things this season, but as of right now it’s hard to think about anything else besides this loss tonight.”
It took Lewis nearly an hour to get settled and shower after the game. The team buses were waiting patiently for the last man to leave the Ravens locker room.
When Lewis did his postgame media briefing at the end, he began by saying that Peyton Manning was waiting to have a word with him. Lewis addressed his mutual respect for Manning, as this would be the last time the two ever meet on the field. Manning had won nine in a row. But Lewis won the final matchup, finally slaying the giant.
“When you finally sit down, the only thing you remember is the great wars that you actually went against some of the greatest of all time,” Lewis said. “That man right there has the ultimate respect, because he is, in my book, probably the greatest of all time. When I was preparing this week, I was in awe of time and time again of how he figures things out, how he makes plays,” Lewis said.
“From that being said, to have us win, the way it happened, like I said, let His will be done.”
After Lewis finished with his myriad of interviews, he met Manning quietly in the now-empty visiting locker room underneath Mile High Stadium. Manning was with his wife Ashley and two-year old son Mosley.
Manning’s wife said to Lewis, “I’m so happy for you” as the legends posed for a family picture and a kind word.
There were a whole bunch of people in Baltimore who felt the same way.
Mufasa would need rest for another battle a week later. Manning, meanwhile, would be hibernating for nine months.
