Jamal Lewis ended the game with 91 yards on 29 carries and Dilfer again proved to be extremely efficient, completing 16 of 24 passes for 187 yards and a pair of touchdown throws to Qadry Ismail and Brandon Stokley.
“Jamal had really come on and I knew that how far we could go would depend on him running the ball for us,” Billick said. “That became our profile. That was who we were. We were going to run the ball and not make dumb mistakes and then let our defense go out there and work for us.”
Approaching the two-minute warning that cold day at PSI Net Stadium, the fans had time to celebrate and the video boards showed joyous clips of the now infamous Seinfeld episode and the deeper meaning of “Festivus.”
Billick dug a little deeper in his post-game remarks, trying to put the value of the team’s performance into perspective.
“You wonder if the players in today’s game appreciate some of the little things, the team concept,” Billick said. “This organization not having been to the playoffs, this town not being able to enjoy a playoff atmosphere for close to 25 years. Those players in that locker room appreciate that. They understand it. It means a lot to them. And so to stand up and be accountable that way and to live up to what you said you were going to do sometimes is undervalued and my hats go off to those guys in the other room.
“I’m happy for my organization. I’m happy for the city of Baltimore.”
Billick had to re-explain his ban of playoff talk.
“The ban of the ‘P’ word is off!” he proclaimed. “This team, this organization has never been there. There are other teams that had the right from the get go to say, ‘We’re going to the Super Bowl this year, we’re going to win a championship,’ and certainly those are our goals as well. They have been all along. But the thing I was trying to get across to these guys is that accountability says you can’t talk about that until you get into the playoffs …We’re going to do everything we can to position ourselves to make a run in the playoffs. It’s going to be an exciting atmosphere and we’re going to go full-long into it.”
Part of Billick’s brave new world was bracing himself and his organization in preparation for the possibility of a Super Bowl run. Making sure that for neophytes to the postseason – most in the organization had never experienced games in January, unlike Billick who had been there almost annually as a member of the Minnesota Vikings – that there was, again, a well-thought-out plan for success.
Even as he had banned playoff talk during the bye week just days earlier, Billick and David Modell spent much of that “off” week preparing not only for the playoffs, but for the possibility that they would be arriving in Tampa for Super Bowl XXXV in less than seven weeks.
“We made up a schedule that ran for 48 days leading up to the Super Bowl,” Billick said. “I spent an appreciable amount of time working on that thing during the bye week. Virtually the whole week, really. I wasn’t going to waste my time if I didn’t think it was a very real possibility. We wanted to send a clear message when we gave this itinerary to the players: we can go to the Super Bowl!”
Billick sat with Bob Eller, the teams’ director of operations and information,plotting everything from hotel strategy to flights to busing to catering to time management and media management, making sure that the postseason would not present any surprises.
“We wanted minimal distractions then, so we made a plan ahead of time,” Billick said. “It was a clear schedule of events and meetings designed to take us right through the Super Bowl.”
Meanwhile, David Modell was downtown plotting all of the guerilla marketing tactics that would earn him and his organization the highest marks possible during January in Tampa.
One of the ancillary benefits of being a good team and making the playoffs was the ample opportunity for extra attention. Both the Ravens’ players and fans got their fair share once the word spread that this team was pretty good.
Start with the magazine covers.
The Ravens got the front page of The Sporting News for their defensive pursuits during early December and the following week, Ray Lewis’ story of the Atlanta murders and the aftermath was featured on the cover of ESPN Magazine. Where the fans of the team previously lamented the national media’s disrespect for the team, all of a sudden purple could be spotted everywhere from the television to the Internet to newspaper accounts of how Baltimore’s little football team would be a threat in January’s NFL playoffs.
The Pro Bowl selections were also slated for the back end of the bye week, on Dec. 14, and this was one day that many Ravens’ fans and players were familiar with. The team had never been cheated with Pro Bowl berths, just with victories to go along with them.
“When I got here I was very clear with a lot of the players that they needed to make a conscience choice,” Billick said. “Do you want to go to the Pro Bowl or the Super Bowl? For some guys, they were going to have to give up one to get the other.”
What Billick meant was that individual honors come, in some ways, through selfish play. Do you want to take a risk to make a big play or maintain the security by playing within the framework of the system? Will you sacrifice tackles, sacks and glory for the bigger prize of team victories?
“The Pro Bowl really comes down to individual stats,” linebacker Jamie Sharper told me at The Barn that week. “A lot of times, guys go there on nine or 10 sacks, five or six interceptions. But when you play team defense, like we play, you don’t give up any points. We’re No. 1 in the rush, No. 1 in pass defense. You’re on the field like 50 snaps and the team doesn’t run the ball at you. They throw short routes so you don’t get sacks. I mean if you play great team defense, you’re not going to have those stats. When the players sit down and vote, all they have are the stats in front of them. They don’t have the team stats, they have the individual stats.”
Specifically on defense, the team had boasted no less than four Pro Bowlers in recent years, including Ray Lewis, Peter Boulware, Michael McCrary and Rod Woodson. Going to Hawaii after watching the Super Bowl on television was nothing new to these guys.
And make no mistake about it, winning and the “team concept” cost Boulware and McCrary their rightful place in Honolulu during February 2001 because they didn’t get voted onto the team. Instead, Lewis and Woodson made their traditional trip along with – surprise, surprise – the newest Ravens’ defensive powerhouse, defensive tackle Sam Adams.
Many times, players get overlooked because of the popularity contest that is the Pro Bowl. Being an incumbent almost guarantees you preferred status.
For Adams, it was especially sweet and deserved, considering the bashing of his work ethic in previous seasons and the way the Seahawks and head coach Mike Holmgren showed him the gate nine months earlier.
Most in the organization were pleased with the Baltimore delegation headed for the island in February, but there was some heartfelt sentiment that Burnett was unfairly overlooked.
Along with the three representatives from the defense, left tackle Jonathan Ogden made his fourth appearance and kicker Matt Stover got his first invitation of an 11-year career. Nice to know someone benefited from the team’s lack of touchdowns during the middle of the season.
Individual accolades were nice, but on the field, there were still two games to be played, and the last two weeks of the season would prove to be a minefield that tested the mettle of the team.
First, the trip to Arizona would be difficult despite the seemingly hopeless nature of the opponent, the Cardinals, who were 3-11 entering the game.
It was a strange trip in many ways.
The Ravens had endured a very emotional week. The playoffs were looming. They were traveling on Friday instead of Saturday, sitting still for a five-hour flight. The holidays were eight days away. And the biggest news item of the week had nothing to do with football and everything to do with perspective and life. Popular wide receiver and punt return man Jermaine Lewis’ wife, Imara, had given birth to a stillborn child that week, casting a pall upon the entire franchise at a point when euphoria was in the air.
Several thousand Raven fans made the pre-holiday trip into the desert for golf, relaxation and an almost gift game in mid-December. The popular notion was that a bad football team would just lie down.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In a surreal setting with just 20,000 fans scattered throughout Sun Devil Stadium on a stunningly gorgeous, sunny day, the Ravens were given a stiff scare by the scrappy Cardinals, playing their final home game of the season.
The Ravens’ offense was anemic that day, managing just 214 yards and 14 first downs. Dilfer was 12 of 22 for just 70 yards and badly underthrew several wide-open receivers. After the game, he came up to me and offered to come by The Barn for my radio show and even said, “Of course, if I play the way I did today no one will want to come out and see me. I was brutal!”
You can accuse Dilfer of much, but denial is not in his vocabulary. He is all about accountability.
Everyone in purple got humbled in the desert that day.
Cornerback Chris McAlister, who had gone three weeks without allowing a receiver to catch a pass on him, had been talking garbage all week regarding his defensive prowess and growing reputation. Cardinals’ quarterback Jake Plummer and wide receiver David Boston wasted no time in bursting his bubble, connecting on a 56-yard pass early in the game and Boston was the one taunting and flaunting deep into the Ravens’ secondary.
The game started well, as the Ravens got the first three points on the scoreboard when Matt Stover hit a 42-yard field goal after Dilfer drove the offense 68 yards on 13 plays before stalling at the 25-yard line.
The Cards grabbed the lead 5:19 into the third quarter when Frank Sanders snared a Jake Plummer pass across the middle, eluding a diving Rod Woodson, and scampering into the end zone. Woodson was clearly gambling on the play, and lost badly.
Three minutes later, Woodson would atone for his mistake, knocking running back Michael Pittman nearly unconscious at his own 7-yard line, as the ball popped free and into the arms of Ray Lewis. Three plays later, Jamal Lewis took the ball into the end zone and the Ravens were again on top, 10-7.
Stover added another field goal six minutes later and the Ravens clung to a slim 13-7 lead throughout a wild fourth quarter.
The Cardinals were driving toward a winning score nearing the two-minute warning when linebacker Peter Boulware appeared to force a fumble on an aborted shovel pass up the middle by Plummer. The referees reversed the call, making the play an incomplete pass instead of a sack and fumble recovery, and the Cardinals were back in business on the Ravens’ 12-yard line with less than a minute remaining.
Again, it was Woodson who would take the game into his hands to seal a victory.
“We had a timeout and everyone on the sideline was talking, trying to figure out what defense to call,” said defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis. “Rod (Woodson) walked out onto the field and called a ‘max blitz,’ just sending everyone.”
By making that call, Woodson was putting himself on the line to make the big play, leaving everyone else to go after the quarterback while he has the “hot” receiver, the guy that Plummer was going to look to first to unload the ball and continue the drive.
“Rod is always signaling to me what he wants to do,” Marvin Lewis said. “He’s usually right. He’ll never make a call that doesn’t put the pressure squarely on him to make a play. He puts himself at the point of the attack. He thrives on making himself responsible and that’s why he’s so great. Other guys don’t want the game to rest on their shoulders. They want the ball going someplace else. He knows everything that’s going on out there and he wanted it coming his way. He basically was saying, ‘Let me win the game for us.’”
Woodson, as it was said earlier, wasn’t having his finest game, at one point saying to Marvin Lewis, “I was awful out there.” But on that final play, with Plummer staring at a fourth and 6, which would move the chains a step closer to the end zone and a major upset victory, it was Woodson who made the defensive call.
