#17

 

RAY LEWIS

Descriptions of football players as tough, ferocious, and intimidating don’t often carry much weight.

In a game that is built on controlled violence, anger, and brutality, the majority of players, especially those on the defensive side of the ball, seem to have an innate sense of these traits. If players didn’t have these characteristics, they would have stopped playing the game long before their high school careers came to an end.

But there are those players who are just a little bit different than the majority when it comes to emotional makeup. There are players who seem to hit harder than others. Former Chicago Bears linebacker Doug Buffone calls it the Neanderthal gene.

Ray Lewis is one of those players who was born to be a football player. He has been one of the hardest hitters and most effective tacklers the game has ever seen.

Lewis had many of the tangible characteristics needed to become the dominant figure on one of the best defenses the NFL has seen in the last 50 years. He had quickness and speed for his position, the strength needed to knock over brutish blockers and explosive running backs, and the intelligence to figure out how the offense was going to attack.

However, it was his intangible characteristics of leadership and ruthlessness on the field that allowed him to rise up to the level of the great players whoever competed.

Lewis’s story of success on the football field is compelling, but it is also just part of his tale. He had his best year in 2000 when the Ravens put on a defensive show that rivaled the 1985 Chicago Bears. However, his off-the-field activities in the offseason that preceded that year nearly derailed his career.

Lewis went to a party prior to Super Bowl XXXIV in Atlanta, and by the end of the night, Lewis had a murder charge hanging over his head after a brawl left two men dead outside an Atlanta nightclub.

There was never enough evidence to make the murder charge against Lewis stick, and he would eventually plead guilty to misdemeanor obstruction of justice. However, the event has left a stain against Lewis’s reputation and has given his detractors the fuel to question his character.

While those questions have never disappeared completely, it was clear that Lewis was not about to do anything else that could put his NFL career in jeopardy. He was a man on a mission throughout the 2000 season, and the Ravens defense carried the team to remarkable heights.

The Ravens did not have a functional offensive team that year. They did not score an offensive touchdown between Week 5 and Week 9. Head coach Brian Billick had earned his reputation as a record-setting offensive coordinator with the Minnesota Vikings, but he simply did not have the kind of weapons to make a difference in Baltimore.

But he had Lewis, who led a ferocious defense. There were several other top-level defenses in the NFL that season, including that of the Oakland Raiders, the Tennessee Titans, and the New York Giants, but none of them played with the relentlessness of the Ravens.

Lewis had 137 tackles, three sacks, two interceptions, and three fumble recoveries in 2000, and he earned NFL defensive player of the year honors as well as his fourth straight trip to the Pro Bowl.

But individual honors had nothing to do with Lewis’s motivation that season. Despite his team’s problems on offense, the defense was so strong that Lewis knew that his team was capable of winning a Super Bowl.

“That’s why I played football throughout my career,” Lewis said. “It was all about winning championships. I wanted to be a champion and I played with guys who wanted the same thing. We could taste it that season, and each week we got better. We didn’t just want to get into the playoffs, we wanted to win the whole thing. We knew we had the team to do it because of the way we attacked. Who was going to get the best of us?”

The Ravens played like crazed dogs in playoff victories over the Denver Broncos and Tennessee Titans. They were underdogs when they traveled to Oakland to take on the explosive Raiders, but they stopped quarterback Rich Gannon and that offense in its tracks and earned a spot in Super Bowl XXXV against the Giants.

While Lewis had to deal with non-stop questions about his alleged role in the incident from the previous year, Lewis would not allow himself to be distracted. The Baltimore defense was at its best in that game. They simply did not give the Giants any room to breathe, and it was a matter of choking off the running game, shutting down the passing game, and not giving the Giants any offensive rhythm. New York had no chance in a 34-7 defeat. The only points the Giants scored came on a kickoff return for a touchdown.

Lewis would not win another Super Bowl until his final season in 2012, when the Ravens outlasted the San Francisco 49ers 34-31.

Baltimore was no longer a defensive juggernaut, and Lewis was basically a one-armed player who had lost more than a step by that point in his career. The 49ers gained 484 yards in a game that they were inches away from winning.

Despite the Ravens’ struggles on the defensive side of the ball in that game, Lewis and his teammates came up with one final stop with less than two minutes remaining that allowed Baltimore to win the championship.

While he was no longer dominant physically, Lewis’s incredible will and leadership were huge factors in bringing Baltimore another Super Bowl title.

“I don’t know, at least in my time in the league, if there’s been a defensive player that’s had as big an impact,” said Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy. “Ray Lewis is really an incredible example of a leader. Talk about somebody opening up his chest and giving his heart to his football team. That’s what Ray Lewis did.”