Both of the Harbaugh boys had been on the cusp and couldn’t grab the golden ring as assistant coaches. And for some who had spent their whole lives in pursuit – like Newsome, as a player, scout, coach, and general manager – the entire experience was to be fully savored.
“You just don’t know how hard it is to get to the Super Bowl,” said Newsome, who did know. He started in the NFL in 1978. It was 2013, and he was getting his second chance after a decade of sheer heartbreak and close calls in Cleveland. So it was 35 years and two chances. Hard, indeed…
“You’ve got to manage injuries,” Newsome said. “There are so many different things you have to manage just to get this opportunity. This team has a lot of resolve. John [Harbaugh] first used the word ‘resolve.’ I think you saw that with those first four games in 17 days. That was a tough stretch. John did a very good job with his staff preparing the team for that stretch. You could see the resolve that the team had. They never blinked during those first four weeks, and we were able to come away 3-1. I think the resolve of the football team, I think we’ve got outstanding leadership on our team. And I think what they do in the locker room is we have a mentoring program, where some of the veteran players actually take and spend a lot of time with our rookie players. We’ve got great leadership also.”
For two Ravens, the New Orleans trip was even more special because it was also a homecoming and a special week with their friends and family.
Ed Reed grew up about 20 minutes from the Superdome in St. Rose. Wide receiver Jacoby Jones grew up in New Orleans East, a swampy area hit hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. His family home and his high school were destroyed in the storm.
Reed’s story was well told all week as a “Hall of Famer in waiting and The Other Guy from the U who was probably playing his last game in a Ravens uniform as well.” However, the story of Jones’ journey was just beginning to dance its way into America’s living room as he continued to make big plays for the Ravens in the postseason, including the miracle at Mile High.
Jacoby Rash’d Jones, was born on July 11, 1984 in New Orleans and played at Marion Abramson High School after he was told he was too small to play football at St. Augustine High School. He was just 5-feet-7 and 160 pounds then – “with bricks in my pocket,” as he now likes to tell the story – a track star and sprinter who also loved basketball. Having only played one year of football, he went to Southeastern Louisiana on a track scholarship in 2002, but transferred to tiny Lane College in Tennessee because they agreed to let him follow his dream to play football. He walked on at Lane. As he later told the story, “I ate my green beans, and I grew to be 6-foot-3.”
“I still have the track mentality when I walk out on the field,” Jones said. “I always think, ‘Catch me if you can.’ When I’m getting ready to return a kick, I sometimes try to fake the kicker by swaying back and forth. I don’t want them to know where I am lining up.”
With a body full of tattoos, he had a special one that became fun for the media to photograph and for him to discuss at the Super Bowl. “I think I have the most tattoos on the team,” he said with pride. “The most talked about tattoo that I have is on my back. I have the city of New Orleans, which I put on my back, because that’s where I was born and raised. A lot of people lost everything in Hurricane Katrina, and being a guy that is blessed, but is still trying to make it and achieve my goals, I said, ‘I’ll put the city on my back, literally.’ I have a lot of belief in my city that we can come back from Katrina.”
Along with Corey Graham, he made Newsome look prescient with his offseason free agent acquisitions. When Jones left Houston amidst the rubble of the muffed punt and a city of angry Texans fans, his head coach Gary Kubiak told him to “put a smile on his face, get a new start and kick some butt in his new job.”
Jones had done just that over the past 12 months and now he was back at home in New Orleans trying to get a ring. As a gesture of hospitality, Jones’ mother, Emily London-Jones, made plenty of friends on the Ravens roster during the week as she put together a great Louisiana food spread for all of Jacoby’s teammates.
