The Halloween-like crowd was rather animated leading up to kickoff. For the city of Oakland, it was its first chance to host an AFC Championship Game since 1976, when John Madden was still coaching the team and before Davis’ foray into Los Angeles.
After the first couple of series of downs, the crowd wore down, perhaps as a result of the consumption of drugs and alcohol. When all was said and done, they were not a very noisy or active crowd, never really affecting the game or altering the Ravens’ offensive game plan in any way.
The Ravens got the first big play of the afternoon when cornerback Robert Bailey stepped in front of a Rich Gannon pass intended for Tim Brown and pulled the ball in at the Raiders’ 19-yard line. Four plays later, the Ravens had gained just one yard and kicker Matt Stover was forced on to the field to put the Ravens on the scoreboard. Stover hit the ball cleanly, but the ball sailed right, hitting the upright flush and falling off to the side, no good.
The stands rattled with delight.
The club box I was in began shaking, and the glass partitions that separated us from the rowdies shattered as the black and silver faithful pounded on them. So there was broken glass to my left. On the right, three kids who couldn’t have been more than 10 years old were pressing their middle fingers on the glass as their parents laughed with delight.
It was clear that these people were not messing around.
It was around that time that my bladder began to fill from the two pre-game adult beverages that I had enjoyed, and I had the toughest decision of the day on my hands: Go to the public bathroom and risk bodily harm, hold it the remainder of the game (not a realistic plan) or find an alternative method of relieving myself.
I sought out a large cup and proceeded to find a private area in the back corner of the box. I knelt, shielded myself and did my business as best I could under the circumstances. I’m not proud that I’m even sharing this with you, but for those who have asked, “How was the crowd in Oakland?” I feel compelled to give you an accurate portrayal of the intimidation factor.
Back on the field, it was the guys in silver and black who began to find a little, yellow puddle between their legs.
Gannon and his offensive line were getting tortured by the Ravens’ defensive front seven, as Michael McCrary sacked him early and Jamie Sharper added one of his own.
Raiders punter Shane Lechler pinned the Ravens down on their own 12-yard line to begin the second quarter. On the next play, Dilfer was sacked at the 4 by William Thomas on a blitz.
Two plays later, on third-and-18, Dilfer did a quick, three-step drop and found tight end Shannon Sharpe on a crossing route. Sharpe grabbed the ball on the fly at the 10, shedding veteran safety Marquez Pope, who flailed on the ball. He stepped around diving safety Anthony Dorsett as wide receiver Brandon Stokley sealed a block on cornerback Tory James, and Sharpe took off down the middle of the field. Running with wide receiver Patrick Johnson as a traffic cop much of the way, Sharpe went untouched for a 96-yard touchdown that seemed like he was moving in slow motion.
Down just 7-0, the Raiders never recovered.
“We sucked the life out of them,” Billick would later say.
On the next play, Gannon threw an incomplete pass to James Jett, taking a brutal hit at the end of the play from Tony Siragusa, who landed all of his 350-plus pounds on the quarterback and his shoulder. Siragusa would later be fined for the hit, despite not getting flagged for a penalty at the time.
Gannon, who was helped off the field, gave way to Bobby Hoying, who was baffled by the speed and the complexity of the Ravens’ defense.
“Defensively they just didn’t know what was coming,” Billick now says. “They didn’t understand the speed. There’s no way to know that from watching film. They thought they had a running threat and a mobile quarterback and that’s all they needed. That’s their profile. That’s how they won all year.”
What Raiders head coach Jon Gruden didn’t prepare for was a defense that would stop his team’s greatest asset – their ability to run the ball. The Raiders’ game plan showed their arrogance about their running game. They believed they would be the first team in more than two full seasons to run the ball effectively against the Ravens.
Unfortunately for the Raiders, once Gannon left with a clavicle injury and the running game was stuffed, they had no “Plan B.”
“You can’t appreciate this defense until you play it,” Billick said. “It’s like playing Barry Sanders. You can’t properly prepare for it until you see it. That was our advantage.”
Hoying was intercepted by Duane Starks two plays later at the Raiders’ 29, and Starks returned it to the 20, setting up a 31-yard field goal that Stover made good on. The Ravens led 10-0 at the half.
The Raiders’ only score of the afternoon came on a Sebastian Janikowski 24-yard field goal early in the third quarter, the result of a Dilfer interception to Johnnie Harris on the third play of the second half.
Up 10-3, Billick was content to take the air out of the ball and utilize the running game of Jamal Lewis, who ran the ball 19 times in the second half for 53 yards.
Stover added a pair of field goals, of 28 and 21 yards, and the defense did the rest with a forced fumble and two more interceptions, including one by Sharper in the waning moments that sealed a 16-3 win.
The Raiders ended the day with just 24 yards rushing and 191 total yards in a game that was never as close as the score indicates.
The Ravens’ defense forced five turnovers against a team that was the least generous in the NFL in that department. In short, it was another complete and total domination by the unit. They had again imposed their will on yet another home favorite in their march to Tampa. They had shut down another formidable running game. They had again not allowed a touchdown.
As I made my customary walk down to the field in the final five minutes of the game, it really struck me. This was the walk I had waited for, the one that I had joked about with Ravens Vice President of Public Relations Kevin Byrne since practically the day we met.
“The Ravens are really going to the Super Bowl,” I thought.
Once on the field, the taunts from the Raiders’ fans didn’t even faze me. Some debris was thrown, but there was the beautiful Lamar Hunt Trophy being carried onto the field and presented to Art Modell on the dais.
There was plenty of cheer in the locker room, and since I was wearing what appeared to be official Ravens’ team apparel, I got into the closed off area without detection.
“Take a knee!” Billick yelled to his frenzied players.
Billick spoke passionately about the team’s accomplishment, their resolve and, oddly enough, a story about a slain San Francisco police officer who had lost his life in the line of duty. The story had taken the Bay Area by storm that week, and Billick utilized it to make a point about the fragile nature of life and appreciating what they had accomplished.
“It was the appropriate moment to put the game in the proper context,” Billick said. “It was the last thing I saw that morning on the news before I left the hotel and I just wanted to give them a dose of reality.”
It felt like I was in that locker room for hours, watching the celebration and hearing the tales of a Super Bowl team. I had hours before my flight was to leave San Francisco, so I was truly in no hurry to leave. I had been around locker rooms enough to know that you should always fully relish and savor the good times. This might be the last celebration, I thought. They could lose in Tampa and this might be as good as it gets.
So, I enjoyed the conviviality thoroughly, seizing the day.
Shannon Sharpe had the best line in the locker room after the game. “I think we’re going to need to stop off in Dallas on the way home for some more champagne,” he shouted.
I finally turned out of the locker room and walked the mile or so back to my rental car. It was there that the enormity of the accomplishment started to take on some distance. There were only a handful of Ravens fans in the Bay Area to begin with, and there was no one left for me to high-five or hug on my way to the airport or on the flight home. After all of the celebrating I’d done, all of the home and road games I’d attended, all of the fun the Ravens had provided me during the past five years, at the moment of their greatest achievement, I’d be flying six hours alone across the country that night.
Before I boarded the flight, I caught a quick shower (and I was in desperate need of one) at a local hotel near the San Francisco Airport. Coming out of the shower, I glanced at the television and there it was: Chris Berman and Tom Jackson on the ESPN “Primetime” set with a Super Bowl XXXV logo flanked by the Giants’ “NY” symbol and the purple bird and “B” of the Baltimore Ravens.
Reality struck me. The Baltimore Ravens are in the Super Bowl.
Pinch me!
I slept hard on that flight across the country that night, dreaming about how Baltimore and its fans would react to what almost always seemed to be a dream itself: a Super Bowl for the Charm City.
