to help heal the world. I think this is a good thing as well and a noble calling. His former teammate Randall Cunningham also became a minister. Who could argue with this route?
Odds: 5-2
The Rod Woodson Route
Rod Woodson to me is the epitome of cool. He was the hardest nut to crack in the Ravens clubhouse because he had what felt like some “Hollywood” in him when he arrived in Baltimore as a washed-up Pittsburgh Steeler and left here with a purple World Championship ring. Woodson does tons of foundation work in Pittsburgh and has a beautiful family and does the NFL Network thing simply because he loves football so much. He’s grown as a student of broadcasting and he’s just a pleasure to converse with about all facets of the world. If Ray wound up chilling and doing real football talk on TV I think tons of people would tune in to see him talk about the game with the passion and energy he brings but I don’t think Ray wants to go into network studio journalism.
Odds: 10-1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWVOnw8aq9A
The Hollywood Route
(aka The Shannon Sharpe, Deion Sanders, Michael Irvin Route)
As much as several people have told me that Ray Lewis will go “The Reggie White Route” I’ve had as many tell me that they fear he’ll abandon Baltimore, live in Florida and show up in loud suits on Sunday afternoons in Los Angeles laughing and clowning on TV. He was a college teammate of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and maybe No. 52 wants to become a movie star. He really seemed to like shooting those commercials as well. I think there will be a great pull on Ray Lewis to “go Hollywood.”
Odds: 4-1
The Lawrence Taylor Route
No need to detail this one other than this:
Odds: 1 million-1 (or at least we hope!)
Obviously, Ray Lewis will probably take on little chunks of a variety of the above roles – except for the latter, which we hope we never see.
It would be easy to go through the various plights of Baltimore. You can just watch “The Wire” and the nightly news