Lewis went back to his faith and the bond of his team. “I know that my faith has always been in God,” he said. “My belief has always been in my teammates. This last ride, for whatever ups and downs, I’ve said a million times, whatever we went through as a team, we figured it out. That is the beauty of true champions. No matter what we went through, we found a way to keep fighting. That’s why we are sitting here as world champions today. So, my ride, personally, how else do you say, thank you for your teammates, thank you to the city that never stopped believing in me and believing in this team? Now, we get to take the trophy back to Baltimore as world champions.”
Leach, the least likely statesman on the team, somehow summed it up best: “That’s the thing about our team. Everybody outside the locker room is always counting us out. We never broke. We knew what kind of team we had, and we knew our number one goal coming into this season was to win the championship. We went through a lot of adversity during the year that normal teams don’t go through. We had a lot of key guys out for a long period of time. We had a lot of young guys playing and getting better. When the veterans came back, we just started rolling.”
Despite all of the hoopla around Lewis’ Last Ride, Harbaugh went back to Schembechler and “the team, the team, the team.”
“I think all of that stuff is overrated,” Harbaugh said. “Obviously, we love Ray Lewis. We love Ray, and there is no way our guys would ever want to have Ray not go out just like this. But it is not just Ray. It is a team effort. It is a team accomplishment.”
Just as Harbaugh uttered those words, Lewis was shouting the words “team” from the other end of the media holding tank interview area underneath the Superdome during the simultaneous press conference. Harbaugh got a big smile on his face, like it was the voice of God using Bo’s words. “See, it’s just like Ray is saying right now, ‘We did it.’ It is a team accomplishment.”
For Flacco, it was a storybook ending to a season that only a dreamer could dream. The kid on the second floor in Audubon with the Joe Montana and Tom Brady photos on the bedroom wall now could see his reflection in their shadow as he faced the white-hot lights of being named the Super Bowl MVP. His line: 22-of-33 for 287 yards and three touchdowns in a 34-31 win.
He was told that his 11 postseason touchdowns without an interception had only been matched one other time, by Montana – his idol – in 1989. “It’s pretty cool,” Flacco said. “Joe Montana has been my favorite quarterback, so to be put anywhere next to him is pretty cool.”
8
Flacco stood at the podium with glazed eyes, almost looking bewildered, his family to his left as the media gathered around. The black circle patch with “Art” in plain white type seemed to glisten boldly off his left shoulder. There certainly was great symbolism and deeper meaning for many who loved Modell. There’s not one picture taken amidst the purple and gold Super Bowl confetti storm that night in New Orleans that doesn’t include the word “Art” on a Ravens players’ chest. Very poetic, almost like art unto itself, just like this Baltimore celebration was a work of art.
Of course, the media was compelled to ask Flacco about his newly-earned leverage as the reigning Super Bowl MVP and getting paid as an “elite” quarterback.
“We just won a Super Bowl. That’s the last thing I’m concerned about, but Steve did let me know that if the day came, I could go beat on his desk and really put it to him. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Flacco said with a sly smile.
Bisciotti knew that Super Bowl championship would cost money and that was perfectly fine with him. He encouraged it when they shook hands back in August in Owings Mills. More than feeling emotion about paying Flacco market rate as the No. 1 quarterback in the NFL, Bisciotti felt pride in his organization’s ability to find, develop and win with a Division I-AA kid from Delaware who had some rare, Sidd Finch kind of qualities.
“I saw a guy maturing the way we would expect him to mature,” Bisciotti said. “As a husband, a father and familiarity with what we’re asking him to do. They all work in his favor. We didn’t expect him to change his demeanor when he got to the NFL. We knew what we were getting and we were very comfortable with it.”
“He took so much shit over the years for his demeanor and his calmness and I just didn’t get it. We always liked Joe’s style and his steadiness. I always said that I believed, in the end, the fans would be rewarded. And I felt that Joe would be appreciated for it in the end. Joe proved you can win it by being like Joe. We never felt like we’ve ever needed to change Joe. He went to the Eli Manning school of disrespect. They gave Eli the same hard time about his personality. Eli has two rings and Peyton has one. And now, so does Joe.”
And much like Bisciotti told Flacco about the contract, it’s made even one better by a Super Bowl MVP trophy and a ring.
8“Now,” Bisciotti said, ‘he gets to say, “I told you so!’ ”
Flacco said the experiences and losses and heartbreak all steeled the resolve of the players around him. “It is what really makes and forms a team – a Super Bowl Champion team,” he said. “We’ve been put through those situations so when they come up, we don’t know if we are going to be successful in them, but the bottom line is that the moment doesn’t get too big. We are comfortable. We’ve been there before. We’ve battled before. We’ve succeeded before. We are not worried about the outcome. We just go out there and play football, execute and we believe that if we do that, and we do that to our ability, then eventually it is going to work out.”
“It’s unbelievable,” Flacco said. “I’ll tell you what, we don’t make it easy. That’s the way the city of Baltimore is and that’s the way we are. We did this for everyone back home; we had a great send off, and we can’t wait to get back for the parade.”
And with that, Joe Flacco was headed to Disney World.
And Ray Lewis, who was standing on the dais amidst a swirl of purple and gold confetti holding the Lombardi Trophy once again, was about to go work for Disney.
The Baltimore Ravens were the World Champions once again.
The second purple reign was complete.
