Belichick’s respect for the Ravens organization and Newsome is well known. Belichick wanted to draft Ray Rice in 2008. He always tells Ed Reed what a fabulous player he is and compliments him in press conferences and even behind the scenes with Tom Brady. Belichick made the famous “after midnight” call to Steve Bisciotti telling him that Harbaugh was the right man for the job. And despite any differences anyone has with Belichick’s famously unforgiving tone, disposition or couture, everyone respects the results and the accomplishments of his football work with Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.
“These guys have been champions many times, and for us to understand that, we’ve got to understand what it’s going to take to go up there and win in New England.” Ray Lewis said. “There’s a straight focus that you have to have to go win into a hostile environment against a very, very qualified team who has done it many times.”
There was nothing about the Patriots that intimidated the Ravens, who had been through that fire and won as often as they’d lost in recent years. The Ravens beat the Patriots in Week 3. They went to New England in January 2010 and ended the Pats season as Ray Rice ran wild in the frigid air and Flacco played with an eggplant-colored hip.
“There’s no intimidation,” said safety Bernard Pollard. “You have two good teams going against each other. One thing I say to any football player who is intimidated – you’re a coward and a punk. This is a man’s game. This is what it is. I am going to call it how I see it. You don’t fear no man or no team. We’re going to go in there with our heads high and ready to play. We understand what kind of team we are facing. This is a very experienced team that has been there before. Coach [Bill] Belichick is [5-1 in conference title games]. I saw that this morning. But that does not scare us. We’re going to go out, and we want to outhit you and outplay you, and we want to go to the Super Bowl.”
Just the mere fact that the Ravens had picked themselves up after the 2012 gut punch in New England and cleared everything in their path to get back to this point spoke volumes about who they were and how they fought through adversity.
“After the win at Denver, I sat home and said, ‘Wow.’ I really had to go home and say, ‘Wow.’ We are right back in the same place a year later?” said Ray Rice. “Just thinking about Ray Lewis’ message to us and him saying that we will be back a year later … Look at all that we have been through to even get back to where we are at. We’ve been through a lot of adversity this year. To overcome the things that we have overcome, to be counted out, to be not good enough at times, to be back in the AFC Championship game is definitely a humbling feeling. I don’t think you get here by accident. I think you play hard, you do the right things, you have faith in your team, you believe in each other, and you go out there and play for each other. Stats and all the other good stuff, you could throw all that aside, because one thing about our group is we have a very unselfish group. We are very unselfish. It doesn’t matter who is getting the job done as long as we are getting the job done when we go out and execute, and that really feels good.”
One thing that the special teams coach in Harbaugh felt really good about heading into New England was the state of mind of his kicker. These Ravens-Patriots matchups were almost designed to be nip and tuck all the way. Given the state of events in 2012, you had to spend the week believing that a field goal one way or the other would affect the outcome. Harbaugh had watched Tucker come into camp, beat Cundiff out for the job, and simply deliver all year long.
