On the other side of the ball, guard Marshal Yanda agreed. “When we were losing three straight, we were kind of holding our butts a little bit, but obviously, we just got back to playing good football and keep fighting though it,” Yanda said. “Stuff happens. You can’t control injuries and stuff like that. We kept battling. This team does that. We have a lot of guys on this team with a lot of pride and go to work every day and just get after it and want to win.”
As is his custom, Flacco was more pragmatic than emotional about all of it. He even downplayed the commonly held theory that playoff games somehow move faster or with more intensity.
“I think that’d be putting every NFL player … I think that’d be a criticism to every NFL player out there,” Flacco bristled. “The fact that you’re playing one way in the regular season and a completely different way in the playoffs, I think that’s a bunch of crap. I think we go out there and lay it on the line every week, and like I said, I’d be doing myself a disservice and everybody else in the league a disservice if I were to say I thought the playoffs were different. I really don’t. There’s obviously a little bit more on the line, because if you don’t win, you go home. But you’ve put yourself into that position and every one of those games was just as important as the others, so I don’t really buy into that.”
And as for emotions, the rest of the team had plenty of that already. Ray Lewis and Ray Rice were laying on the field in a manbrace, sobbing and proclaiming their eternal love in Denver. Matt Birk was at the end of his career. Ed Reed had been chasing a ring with Lewis since 2002, and Terrell Suggs was now 10 years into his quest. Bryant McKinnie, Haloti Ngata, Sam Koch, Bernard Pollard, and Boldin all had a lot of skin in the game. Even though all of the questions were about Lewis and The Last Ride, Flacco saw it more pragmatically.
“You guys ask so many questions about it, and you make a big deal about it, but when we’re out there, I think he’s giving us the same emotional high that he always gives us,” Flacco said of Lewis. “He always tries to jolt us forward a little bit on game day and get everybody going in his own little way. When we’re out there playing on Sunday, that’s the last thing we’re really thinking about. We’re thinking about what we have to do to win this football game and get the ball in the end zone, and for them, stop the other offense. So, maybe it’s working more than I would like to admit, but I think that’s something that you kind of sit back and can enjoy after you’ve gotten the win and say, ‘Man, it’s pretty cool that we were able to do that and get another step further and closer to where we want to be for that guy.’ ”
But make no mistake about it, for many players – especially on the defense – playing for Ray Lewis was as important as winning the championship for themselves. And for anyone else who had joined Reed, Suggs, Ngata, and the leftovers from Rex Ryan’s purple mafia over the years, there was an obligation and respect paid to the veterans because of how special they were and how important winning and responsibilities were on the Baltimore Ravens defense.
From 1996 through 1998, when the Ravens defense struggled, the seed was planted by the expectations of both of the Lewis boys – Marvin and Ray – that “my bad” was not an expression that was acceptable. No one ever wanted to come back into a huddle and say “my bad” to No. 52.
Accountability was implied. Just as Rex Ryan promised – or in some cases almost threatened – when he met the young recruits before the draft.
“Whenever you are in the locker room with guys like Ed Reed and Ray Lewis, it is a different locker room,” said cornerback Corey Graham, who played the game of his life in the biggest game of his life in Denver. “You have to be around those types of guys to realize what they bring to a team. Being in Chicago for five years, I have never seen anything like it. To just hear the motivational speeches they are giving, the way they talk, the way they teach, the way you learn here, it is different in this locker room, and I can see why they do so well.”
Graham said it was like going to a doctorate program and being mentored by the some of the best to ever play the game.
“You have guys that just know what they are doing.” Graham said. “When you look at guys like Ray Lewis that has been here for 17 years … And I don’t know how many years Ed Reed has been here – but I know it is has at least been 10 … Guys have been here … [Terrell] Suggs has been here, guys have been here awhile. They know what they are doing. They can teach you a little bit more, because they know the system; they know what is supposed to happen. They have seen probably everything you could probably see.”
As much as Lewis was heralded for all he’s done over the years, the other guy from The U had definitely become more of the leader on the field by 2012 and unlike Lewis, was on the field every week. Lewis had missed chunky parts of two of the past three seasons. Graham hadn’t spent any real time on the field playing with Ray Lewis until the Colts game, so Reed was his go-to player for any discrepancies in communication or understanding. The players knew how much film Reed studied and virtually every great play he ever made was some combination of film study, football IQ, and instinct. Sometimes he guessed wrong personally, but he always knew where everyone needed to be in a formation. He was like a coach on the field and talked a lot about wanting to coach football.
“Ed Reed holds everybody together,” Graham said. “When the next guy has to go out there and get the job done, this is your job. When they are throwing you out there, they are depending on you to do well. You have guys like Ray Lewis, where this is his last year he is ever going to play, so you don’t want to be the guy to let everybody down. So, when you get thrown out there, you want to make sure you hold up on your end, and you make plays and try to help your team win as much as possible, and that is what everyone has been doing. Whether it is Jimmy [Smith], Chykie [Brown], me, Cary [Williams], Lardarius Webb, when he’s here, everybody is stepping up to the plate and making plays.”
For Lewis, it was now or never. Five consecutive playoff appearances in a row and now a third chance in an AFC Championship Game for the confetti run.
All of the emotion on the field with Ray Rice was real. Lewis remembered what it meant to Rod Woodson, Tony Siragusa, Michael McCrary, Harry Swayne and the veterans to win a Super Bowl in 2001. Now his little brother was playing the role of the young guy trying to lead the elders to a ring and a confetti party.
“We are dealing with a ‘last’ around here,” Rice said. “This is Ray Lewis’ last hurrah. Our General, our Captain – this is it for him. If you want to call it riding that emotional high, emotions, everything, of course we are, because we are dealing with something that is going to be a last. Every time that we’ve seen someone in the playoffs … The Colts, coach [Chuck] Pagano, we love him, but he’s back to coach next year. Peyton Manning is coming back to play next year. Ray Lewis is not. That’s what he said. He made that decision final. I think we all just put our pride aside, and if we are going to ride it, we are going ride it. But, we are going to go out there and give it our best shot for our guy. He’s done it for us for 17 years and led our guys to one Super Bowl. We speak of it, and it stands right here. I’m not taking any credit away from the New England Patriots. They are battle-tested. They have won many Super Bowls. They set the standard on how to win. You think about a guy that has been a pioneer in the NFL, who has changed the way some rules are being written in the game … You can’t hit guys a certain way anymore because of the crushing hits that he has hit, laid over people across the middle. You are talking about a pioneer that has laid a platform for him for the whole NFL. We would like to send him out the right way.”
Rice, whose emotions were always on his sleeve, had inspiration in his big brother. He spoke of destiny over and over again. Lewis, however, had been down this road too many times and had felt this way before. He remembers that training room in Baltimore in 2007 after the loss to Manning and the Colts. Then Pittsburgh in 2009, Indianapolis in 2010, Pittsburgh again in 2011, and New England in 2012 – every one of those teams felt like a “team of destiny” right up until they were at their locker after losing and the season was over again.
“You know what? At the end of the day, like I always tell them, there will be one team that holds the Lombardi Trophy, and that will be the ultimate team of destiny for this year,” Lewis said. “And whatever race we have to run, we’re going to run our race. But, I think the thing that [Ray Rice] is speaking about, when you do hear him speak about it, is how we kept fighting, how we kept keeping each other up and no matter who got hurt, next man up, next man up. And that’s kind of the staple that we’ve had around here for a very, very long time. It’s always next man up, and for us to fight through all the bumps in the roads that we have went through all year, I just think that’s an awesome, awesome credit to our team.”
“I mean, if you write it up, there’s no better way to write it up. We all felt the same way leaving there last year, that we had an opportunity to win that game. What better way to go back? If you were going to go to the Super Bowl, then to go back and go back at New England again. We know each other very well. I heard coach [John Harbaugh] speak about it, and every game we play is always those classic games. It comes down to that last play, that last drive. I think they know what we are bringing, and we know what they bring. And for us, we have lot to deal with. We’re probably talking about, arguably, probably the best offense in football, probably the best quarterback, give or take. Coming from Peyton [Manning] from last week to now [Tom] Brady this week … So you’re talking about the top, and anytime you’re talking about the top, if you’re going to go win a ring, then why not go through the top?”
