for all seasons. It’s in that “Zeus getting 15 yards vs. Tennessee” and “Darren Stone cheap shot” kinda area. It’s the final act!
Pass interference calls are acceptable. Getting honestly beaten, like Webb did on that play, I can almost live with, really.
But you can’t drop that ball, Anquan.
And you can’t fumble that ball Ray Rice, especially not 10 yards shy of the sticks.
I know there’s civic pressure as well on Joe Flacco, but other than the interception, which was one of his few mistakes of the day, I thought he was good, but not great. And January is mostly remembered for “great” not “good.”
What will get lost as this devastating loss fades from memory will be the incredible play and heart of Terrell Suggs, yet again in a huge game. His strip of Roethlisberger – as bizarre as it was – was a game-changer and should have been enough to buy the offense a chance to breathe not freeze and stumble and bumble.
Honorable mention goes to Todd Heap – one of those guys you’d love even more as a person if you knew him – who has electrified us in the September of his career.
Ed Reed throwing his body around like a pinball. Billy Cundiff and Sam Koch are so unappreciated and automatic we all take them for granted. Ray Lewis in the October of his career, wanting to win once more for Baltimore, was poignant and composed in his post-game speech.
All of these plays from Saturday, our community will remember like “Ghost To The Post” 25 years from now. Ten years from now we’ll talk about these games but will it be because we’ve finally avenged these tragic losses or because the Ravens have fallen into disrepair after Ray Lewis and Ozzie Newsome depart and we become one of those teams that NEVER seems to get to the postseason?
(Please feel free to fill in your Orioles gallows humor line of choice here but in 1997 we all thought we’d have seen at least one more postseason MLB game in Baltimore before 2012, right?)
I don’t take these things for granted. I know better. I saw playoff football in 1975, 1976 and 1977 only to have a franchise disappear in 1984. I’ve been on the inner circle watching a baseball team that was “Magic” for a generation deteriorate, lie, destroy and then shamelessly profit from the sports soul of my community and somehow I’ve been vilified and ostracized for reporting the truth about it. If Angelos lives another 10 years and owns the team during that period do you really think we’re going to EVER have a postseason baseball game here again?
And like I said, on the football side, we’ve been very, very fortunate. The Ravens aren’t going to make the playoffs every year and get a chance to beat Pittsburgh every January. When you get a golden opportunity and pull a Donnie Moore in the second half, it’s painful beyond my comprehension.
Honestly, if we win a Super Bowl championship sometime soon and don’t beat Pittsburgh on the way, it’ll be less meaningful for me because we will not have extinguished our own civic Grinch. It would be like taking the easy way out. We will not have tamed our jailer, the Bumble of our Rudolph, the Zod of our Charm City, the daddy of our conscience and the granddaddy of my father’s conscience.
This current Steelers-Ravens thing is so disheartening and lopsided that I don’t know that it’ll ever really be rectified.
It’s made even worse by the fact that I go to the Super Bowl every year. It’s PAINFUL to watch these years of Colts and Steelers fans overrunning a city with palm trees – or even Detroit – and run around like a bunch of jackasses at Fantasy Fest meets Mardi Gras.
I WANNA BE THAT JACKASS!!! AND SOON…
The condolences are rolling in. I’m corresponding with people in the organization. The CBA situation and lockout looms. The owner’s meetings are coming. The Super Bowl and the March 4th date approach. The players and owners were fighting in Atlanta yesterday. The off season looks to be dark and murky and uncharted. There might not even be a season in 2011.
It’s a dark, dark week in Baltimore just like it was in Seattle, but especially in New England and Atlanta, where they pissed away a whole season and got crushed after having a bye. Losing in January is harder than being 7-9 and not making the playoffs. Especially once you start to believe and what was not to believe when the Ravens won 30-7 in Kansas City and were destroying the Steelers in Pittsburgh 21-7 at halftime?
But alas, there will be no Festivus Maximus in Baltimore this year. And there will be only more dread and shame in yet another January exit at the hands of the Steelers and the City of Pittsburgh.
Just once more in my life, I wanna throw another Whiskey Joe’s party and see how many purple maniacs we can get into a room to party, celebrate community and convene at the alter of our city’s sports franchise and civic pride.
But it’s not this year. And it’s not in Dallas in three weeks.
As Ray Lewis said, “If it ain’t for ya, it ain’t for ya!”
My only question is: “Will it ever be again…?”
And will that road one day include a day where Baltimore eliminates Pittsburgh and breaks its heart?
