The winner of this game would clearly have the inside track to the Lombardi Trophy.
The Titans enforced their will on the Ravens immediately, taking their first possession 68 yards down the field in 11 plays, concluding what would be their only touchdown drive of the day with a 2-yard run from Eddie George, who was sensational on six runs during the drive.
Down 7-0 just 7:17 into the game, and having not even touched the ball yet, Dilfer and the Ravens responded.
On the second play of the possession, Dilfer found a busted coverage and hit a wide-open Shannon Sharpe down the left sideline on a 56-yard strike. Sharpe, alluding defenders, was finally dragged down at the 1-yard line. Two plays later, Jamal Lewis powered off the left side behind the blocking of guard Edwin Mulitalo to score the equalizer.
The Titans found disappointment on the next possession, driving to the Ravens’ 28, before Al Del Greco’s 45-yard field-goal attempt was blocked by Keith Washington.
After nearly a quarter of field-position battling, the Ravens avoided a disaster late in the second quarter when Kyle Richardson’s first of two blocked punts by Chris Coleman was recovered deep in Ravens’ territory. Del Greco then missed a 31-yard field-goal attempt, as the ball hit the left upright and fell backward.
The Ravens had been outplayed and out-chanced in the first half, and yet the score was still tied at 7-7.
After Richardson’s second blocked punt began the second half, Del Greco finally broke through with a 21-yard field goal, giving the Titans a 10-7 lead. Ravens kicker Matt Stover answered with a 38-yarder five minutes later to tie the game, 10-10.
The fourth quarter would prove to be the most exciting and nerve-racking 15 minutes of football in Ravens’ history.
The Titans had clawed their way down to the Ravens’ 20-yard line with just over 12 minutes remaining and were setting up to kick the go-ahead field goal. Del Greco, who had already missed a pair of attempts, lined up for the 37-yarder.
The ball was tipped at the line of scrimmage, again by Washington, and into the awaiting arms of lightly used safety Anthony Mitchell, who was playing centerfield on the play.
Using the blocking of Corey Harris and Chris McAlister, Mitchell motored 90 yards untouched, arriving in the end zone to a wild celebration and a 17-10 lead.
Two possessions later, with the Titans beginning a mini-drive, quarterback Steve McNair had found an open George to the right side, as Ray Lewis approached to apply the hit. George bobbled the ball momentarily, and Lewis snatched it from his hands and began rumbling down the right sideline. With the Titans’ Fred Miller and Frank Wycheck in pursuit and Peter Boulware and Corey Harris accompanying him downfield, Lewis kept his balance and lumbered into the end zone to seal a 24-10 victory.
It was without question the most tense and intense hour of Ravens football, watching the latter part of the second half play out on the field at Adelphia Coliseum.
“That’s the day we knew we were a champion,” Billick would later say. “We allowed them to go 70 yards on the first drive and we didn’t blink. Once our offense responded and scored, I knew the game was ours.”
Instead of being caught on camera after the game, as he’d had the earlier evidence used against him all afternoon, Billick forced all of the video crews out of the locker room after the game.
With the lights and cameras off, and once he silenced his players, he had one more special message for his team, only for the eyes and ears of his guys: “Fuck the Tennessee Titans!” Billick bellowed.
The battle cry of a champion!
Billick later told the media, “When you go into the lion’s den, you don’t tippy-toe in. You carry a spear! You go in screaming like a banshee and say, Where is the son of a bitch?”
Defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis, who saw his entire troop of nine defensive linemen arrive at Adelphia Coliseum that day in military fatigues, saw the destiny of a championship team forming that afternoon.
“I think the most amazing thing that happened all year was that win in Tennessee,” Lewis said. “I bet you can go through the history of the NFL and you might not find another game where a team had two punts blocked and still won the game. The formula says, if you get two punts blocked in a game, you lose. Not only did we win, we won by two touchdowns.”
In an otherwise evenly matched game on both sides of the ball, special teams were the biggest factor in the biggest game of the year.
The biggest hero of all was Mitchell, who will be a trivia answer in Ravens’ lore for generations to come.
An undrafted free agent who had spent 12 games on the Ravens’ practice squad in 1999, he was basically used only on special teams’ packages. He went to Tuskegee University in Alabama and was waived by Jacksonville before signing with the Ravens the previous year. He had spent the entire spring in Europe playing for the Rhein Fire of the World League.
Every week, it seemed, I had invited him out to The Barn after meeting him in an elevator in Jacksonville earlier in the season. He was a friendly guy with a big smile. He always talked about his newborn baby and how he would try to make it out to a live show.
Needless to say when he finally did arrive at The Barn, the next night, he was given the total rock star treatment by the Ravens’ faithful.
“Usually I walk through the mall and people stare at me like Does he play football?” Mitchell said that night. “I guess tonight the fans know who I am. I just want to enjoy it for a little while.”
(My legendary friend Bobby Nyk captured this picture of my inviting Anthony on, literally leaving the field that day. It’s tiny but treasured!)
For the fans of the older generation of Baltimore football, the most talked about and cherished memory of Colts’ lore was when the team arrived back at then-Friendship Airport in December 1958, after beating the Giants to win the city’s first championship.
The photos of the mob scene that night and the tales are legendary.
Picking up on a new tradition that was started by Ravens’ Roost 50 during the 1999 season, the fans of the team stormed BWI Airport in the hours after the Ravens’ victory in Tennessee awaiting the arrival of their conquering heroes.
Instead of arriving at a normal gate, the Ravens were allowed to use the international terminal because there was more space there for the fans to spread out.
“When we first got of the plane there were, like, five people there at the gate,” Billick said. “I was a little disappointed, but it didn’t register to me that we were in another wing of the airport altogether. We had to walk down a tunnel, and the closer I got to the exit, the more I started to hear the roar of the crowd. You could hear it in the distance. It just got louder and louder and louder.”
More than 10,000 people were awaiting the team on the other side of the customs clearance area, inside the international terminal.
With the help of airport security, Billick’s wife Kim and daughters Aubrey and Keegan, fought through to the front of the waiting area.
“When I hit the doorway there were just thousands of people and the first faces I saw outside the door were of my wife and daughters waiting to welcome me back,” Billick said. “It was just a flood of emotion. I thought, ‘Holy shit, this is something!’ It was so genuine and so real. I knew when I took the job that this was a special place. But it didn’t hit me until that moment how truly connected Baltimore was with this football team.”
Billick saw his family together with his fans and he began to cry.
“It was the only time I’ve ever seen him like that,” said one insider. “He was really moved by the accomplishment, what it meant to the people. He was touched.”
Billick began to put together that cold night in 1958 at Friendship Airport and all of the old stories with the events of that afternoon in Nashville and evening at BWI.
“It was tying together the Colts and the Ravens,” Billick said. “It finally said that it’s not about the Colts or the Ravens, it’s about Baltimore football. I really felt the connection.”
