January 22, 2020 • 48 mins
For every person who wants to tell you how great the '85 Bears defense was, you can respond with the excellence of the 2000 Ravens. Did anyone see this coming? Especially considering how the season began under a cloud of tragedy and legal issues for the team's best player? To say it was rocky is an understatement. But when the games started, the Ravens defense did things we hadn't seen in the NFL in the decades before - or since. If that's not enough, they weathered a quarterback change and a near record-offensive drought on their way to the Super Bowl.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Special Teams, a production of My Heart Radio
Greetings and Welcome inside Special Teams with Jason Smith and
(00:23):
Mike Harmon, our podcast that takes a look every week
back at a specific team, a specific year in sports history,
and the imprint they leave on the world of sports.
We go through football, baseball, basketball. We had a big
Christmas one not too long ago that we went through
Hollia sorry holiday holiday, holiday holiday one. And today we
(00:46):
stick in the National Football League by looking back at
the year that was the two thousand Baltimore Ravens, a
season that started with a cloud of uncertainty and controversy
and ended with a debate. Maybe this might be the
best defense that we have ever seen in the NFL.
I know that's very difficult for you. I know, I know,
(01:09):
I know, any buddy, buddy, I know, I know. I
have a list of people that will agree with me. Okay,
your members and your brothers and people who lived in
Chicago don't count. I have a petition. I think that
I made sure before we talked about the Ravens that
I got a petition. I loaded up. I got Isabel
from down the street. She's very unhappy about this. I
(01:30):
got a lot of people who live right outside Wrigley
Field upset about this. Now they're Cup fans, I don't
have them, oh well, but but I actually know there's
a great bar community there, so I can really get
a lot of signatures as there. We're hitting the final
call at two in the morning, all right, So I
just want to make sure that you all rally around
the Bears. I mean, you know, it's the South side
(01:53):
for the White Sox. Oh no, everybody rallies around the Bears. Alright,
very good. Okay, So with that in mind, we'll get
to the debate coming up later on by podcast. But
the year for the two thousand Baltimore Ravens began under
a cloud of incredible controversy as Ray Lewis, star linebacker,
was involved in a murder charge January thirty one of
(02:16):
two thousand, following of the Super Bowl thirty four party
in Atlanta. This is when the Rams beat the Tennessee Titans.
A fight broke out between Louis and his companions another
group of people that resulted in the stabbing deaths of
two people just since Baker and Richard Lawler. Lewis and
his two companions Reginald Oakley Joseph Sweeting were questioned by
(02:38):
Atlanta police, and eleven days later they were indicted on
murder and aggravated assault charges. This fight occurred in the
Buckhead Village neighborhood, which is the big downtown area in
Atlanta that has seen a lot of activity. The white
suit that ray Lewis was wearing the night of the
killings has never been found. The d A said the
(02:58):
blood stained suit was probably dumped in a garbage bin
outside of fast food restaurant. There was a knife found
at the scene, no fingerprints or DNA on it. Lewis
subsequently testified that Oakley and Sweeting had bought knives earlier
in the Super Bowl week when Lewis was signing autographs,
and the blood of one of the victims was found
inside of ray Lewis's limousine. Two weeks into the trial,
(03:21):
ray Lewis reached a plea agreement in which the murder
charge was dismissed in exchange for his testimony against Oakley
and Sweeting. He wound up getting a year's probation, also
fine two fifty thousand dollars by the NFL, which was
then probably the highest fine levied against someone for something
(03:42):
that wasn't involving drugs or or something else like that.
So now ray Lewis is okay to play football. Oakley
and Sweeting were acquitted of the charges in June. No
other suspects were ever arrested for the incident. This is
something that is very high profile that everybody knows about
this ray Lewis story. What I can't believe is that
(04:04):
this happened and ray Lewis was allowed to play in
the NFL this season. He was involved in a murder charge,
he negotiated a plea agreement. All of this evidence was
out there, and this is back when Paul Tagley was
running the NFL and it was hey, whatever you whatever
you do, but you can still play on Sundays. I
can't believe that he was allowed to play in the
(04:26):
NFL to go right back to play, because if that
happened now, he'd be out of the league for at
least a couple I'd like to think the NFL would say, hey,
you're out of the league for a couple of years
because there's protect the Shield, and there's hey, guys who
were killed, their blood is in your limousine. What was
your involvement in this, which we never know. We have
never known. Even the relatives of the two victims say
(04:47):
it's hard to watch ray Lewis, hard to watch him
play football because he knows more about these deaths, and
no one's ever said anything. I can't believe they would
have allowed him to play different NFL under Roger Goodell,
it's a much different time and if nothing else, you
go on the exempt list and there you sit. I
mean part of this is also, look how swiftly it
(05:07):
got resolved in terms of getting to a plea agreement. Right.
It happened in an off season, so he was able
to get back in. I not often do you have
a case move so swiftly either, So I mean that
that's kind of an outlier in that regard. But from
the NFL perspective undertag lebou and that's just the way
they operated, you know, it was as long as you're
(05:28):
literally on the field, suited up and ready to go,
it didn't matter. And that was one of the things
as Goodell took over, trying to clean it up. Hasn't
been imperfect, absolutely hasn't been an unmitigated disaster in certain circumstances,
no question about it. But there was at least an
attempt too, and I hate the term, but protect the
shield to where there is some standard, some code of conduct, uh,
(05:53):
to where you're you're held to at least a bit
of a higher standard with this, I mean. And it's
always bad, right. It remains something that if you watch
any NFL show that Ray Lewis is part of, you're
gonna see commentary on social media about it. Just like
you know, in terms of Captain c for a Pro Bowl,
(06:14):
you have Michael Vick, you know, for for the season.
It's the same thing or for the Pro Bowl when
it's actually played, but just that same idea that these
things still stand and people wanting to get to an
answer but also trying to figure out where that fandom stops.
He's allowed to play, he goes back and he has
(06:36):
one of the great all time seasons in NFL history,
which also I think bears a lot of the brunt
of boy nothing ever really happened to this guy, because
not only was he able to go back and play,
but he goes back and plays is he leads his
team to the super Bowl. It's one of the great
defenses of all time. And here's ray Lewis a year
after Hey, dude, you were involved in a in a
murder to hey, I'm going to Disney World. You know
(06:58):
that that's a very difficult optic to be able to
go from one year to the next. And hey, he
was all we talked about for a while and then
it was oh no, now he's playing and now he's
a hero. Didn't Trent Jifer actually got to do they
I'm going to Disney World tech But yeah, they didn't
go to ray Lewis part. But the whole thing wasted.
Celebrated DP to Bonham and and especially because this has
(07:21):
become such an historic team. So all this is going on,
the Ravens are getting set for their season and they
make two big moves, one in draft and one in
free agency. They signed Shannon Sharp to play tight end
and they draft running back Jamal Lewis out of Tennessee.
Brian Billick, the offensive genius that he was, was hired
away from the Minnesota Vikings in his second year now
(07:43):
with the Baltimore Ravens, and it's kind of odd that
he winds up being a guy that wins the Super Bowl.
He was an offensive genius and he wins on the
back of one of the greatest defenses ever and an
offense that barely scored enough points over the course of
the sea. And that's that's such an odd thing for
a coach to come in and go, yep, it's me.
My offense is coming in. This is what we're gonna do,
(08:05):
and we're gonna light the world on fire. And it no, no, no,
it's it's really the defense and defensive coordinator Rex Ryan,
who is gonna wind up being the guy getting most
of the credit. Well, that's it. I mean, you had
five games where you didn't score an offensive touchdown, as
we'll go through the regular season and their run to
the playoffs, but five games without a an offensive touchdown.
You got Trent Dilfer under center. Wide receivers most couldn't
(08:29):
name any member of that receiving corps except for Shannon
Sharpe that's Hall of Fame tight end. And then you've
got Jamal Lewis and a young guy named Priest Holmes
getting after it. So you know, offensively, you had a
couple of guys who made their mark and certainly want
a number of fantasy titles for people both in in
Ravens uniforms and out. But yeah, Brian Billick knew what
(08:52):
he had. You know, run the ball, played good defense,
and do what you can to protect the football. So
all those are your quote offensive weapons. Also included Jermaine Lewis,
who we're gonna get to in a bit, Brandon Stokely.
That star studded defense. It wasn't just Ray Lewis. It
was Sam Adams and Rob Burnett and Michael McCrary, Tony Sira, Goose,
(09:12):
Dahlias Thomas, Peter Bullware, Dwayne Starks, Chris McAllister, Rod Woodson
the secondary. And when you look and see these were
the guys they had, it really kind of makes sense
they had that kind of season because you would expect
to succeed when you have eight guys of that caliber
playing and you're starting a Hall of famers, pro perennial
Pro Bowlers, guys who went on to great careers in
(09:35):
media because of their celebrity and their success with the
this team and rolling through their NFL careers. I mean,
you just go back and watch, just do yourself a
favor of a quip a couple of quick YouTube highlight
videos and watch how these guys hit It's a different
NFL in because this was still a bit of the
(09:55):
throwback and a couple of those names you mentioned when
you have Obviously we talked about Ray Lewis, but when
you get into the way, you know Woodson played or
or Sharper at the other linebacker position. I mean, you've
got guys that were heavy hitters and really set the
tone for a game on that first possession. So while
the Ravens are getting set for what they hope is
(10:16):
going to be a great year, let's take a look
at some other things that happened in the year two thousands.
Back when Conan O'Brien was on TV a lot and
everybody watched him kind of a big deal, you know
what I mean now, the whole TBS thing, But back
when you know he was Conan O'Brien was whoa Conan O'Brien.
He was that guy that was writing for the Simpsons,
(10:36):
and everybody was excited about leaves and a the Y
two K bug was all the rage. Remember, everybody thought
every all machinery in the United States was gonna go down.
When we turned the calendar from two thousand, I lost
three days of my life being locked in the Yahoo
facility in case something really bad really did happen. I
got a lot of free meals out of here, you did,
(10:57):
But what a miserable Hey, you gotta be there, why this?
Because if it goes to hell, we've got to be
there to fix it. The Florida election recount, which then
spawned an HBO movie as we didn't know who was
going to win the election between Al Gore and President
George Bush. Gladiator. One best picture that when Russell Crowe
(11:18):
was like the Star, the beautiful mind and Gladiator, that
was like his two or three year run of being
He's the biggest star in the world. And now Joaquin
Phoenix laughs at him and you stab me, And now
I have a We sequalize that in uh, you know,
the Afterlife sequelized Gladiator. Gladiator too. In The Afterlife done
(11:41):
the most popular song of the year, Breathe. Faith Hill
had to run of being the hottest woman on the
planet for a little while, and she was waiting all
day for Sunday night. That's that's you better get ready
and I her whole tight yeah, And I celebrate all
of Tim McGraw's catalog and and obviously they've been aread forever.
So that's great. Breathe again and breathe again. Now that's
(12:05):
that's a song, isn't it. I can hear you breathe.
I can hear you breathe logic and I don't remember
all the lyrics, but it's not yours breathe, a different
breathe again. You're channeling somebody else. I can hear you breathe.
I can feel you need Yeah, Okay, that's the breathe.
There's a there's a couple of breathe songs, and there's
just just Breathe by Pearl, just that breathe. Okay, there's
(12:27):
that too. Okay. So that's where we are in the
year two thousand. Coming up next, the big touchdown drought
a big quarterback change, and the drama continues for the
Baltimore Raven Special Teams with Jason Smith in my card.
(12:56):
All Right, you've looked it up on the computer, No,
I I remember, I didn't, you know, Butcher? The song
can feel no breathe because I can feel you breathe.
It's washing over me and suddenly I'm mounting into you.
Breathe again. There's nothing left to prove, baby to be
(13:16):
he Well, you know what if if Faith Will ever
stops doing concerts, I think you can step in fourth.
I mean, I'm not singing full throaty. Let you know
you let me go in front of a crowd. We
take this show on the road. Let's get this guy
in front of a crowd. Let's get it. So. The
Baltimore Ravens start the year two thousand with three shutouts
in their first five games. They blank Pittsburgh sixteen nothing,
(13:40):
Sincinnati thirty seven nothing, Cleveland twelve nothing. In the middle
of that, a big win over the Jaguars thirty six,
and everything looks great. But then that's when the problems start.
As you referenced earlier, the Ravens go five games without
a touchdown, five games, and quarterback Tony Banks loses his
(14:03):
job to Trent Dilfer after the loss to Tennessee. People
forget Tony Banks started the season as the Ravens quarterback
and he lost his job midway through to Trent Dilfor.
I remember being high on Tony Banks fantasy wise going
into this year, thinking, Oh, I like, Tony Banks had
the big game against Jacksonville and I'm like, oh, Tony Banks,
(14:23):
Tony Banks. I remember really liking him in fantasy, and
then he lost the job, and it was what Tony
Banks has done well, some of the metrics we didn't
we didn't look at necessarily the same way back then.
Fifty four point seven percent completion rate. That wasn't awful, right,
I mean, it's a different and that was kind of
all right, that's the middle of the pack, or maybe
(14:44):
a little below, but certainly not the train wreck it
would be perceived as now as you know, when so
many guys completing two thirds of their passes, as you
get more of the tight end running backs involved and
and less shots down field. But eight touchdowns, eight and
receptions had the five and three record, but they weren't
generating much at all as we got to this stretch, uh,
(15:06):
not moving the ball effectively. The run game obviously then
bogs down, and now you've got a self fulfilling just
a cycle and that happens, and you make the change.
But I remember Tony Banks and trying to figure out
whether he was going to be able to just come
back and steal the job back. But the door never opened.
(15:27):
He winds up playing against the Jaguars and beating them
fifteen ten game without a touchdown. Then they lose to
the Redskins ten three. They lose to the Titans fourteen six,
and he came out of the game, and that was
when they decided, Okay, Trent Dilford is gonna be our guy. Well,
Trent Dilfor didn't like the world on fire his first start.
They lost to the Steelers nine to six. So now
(15:48):
suddenly a season that began. Look at this all world
Baltimore Ravens defense there at the midweight point of the
season five and four, and it's like, are they ever
gonna score a touchdown? But that's the funny thing about it,
right in that three game losing Street, they gave up
thirty three points. Unfortunately they only scored fifteen. He's thinking
about what what would happen now? I mean, look at
(16:10):
what team doesn't score twenty four points in a week's
offense is bugging man? You know, you know the miskick
or you know this red zone opportunity, and everybody's losing
their minds this type of offense in the middle of
what was a promising start to a season, you're calling
for heads roll. It's amazing that they were able to
(16:32):
stick together but then after Dilfer got through that first
start against Pittsburgh, the Ravens started rolling and they won games.
They scored over twenty points in the next five weeks
to win five in a row. They beat Arizona thirteen seven.
They're eleven and four. They get to the final game
(16:54):
of the season. They play the New York Jets. They're
playing at home, and the Jets needed this game to
potentially get into the playoffs. And it started off great
because I remember this game. I remember the Jets scored
two touchdowns in the first quarter. Testaverdi was playing really,
really well, and I thought, hey, we're gonna get the
Ravens here. The Ravens were unbeatable after they solved their
(17:15):
mid season problems because they beat everybody. And now Trent
Dilfer's putting points on the board. We're gonna get them.
We're up fourteen nothing. Well, but look at the points again. Happened, Yeah,
points against Once they started getting things together, seven a
narrow victory over Tennessee Dallas zero points allowed, seven points
allowed to the Browns, sending the bye week, and then
(17:35):
they come back San Diego beat them three, give up
seven to the Cardinals and then all of a sudden,
you've got Diedrich Warren and Richie Anderson running free, and
he's like, wait a minute, what's going on here? You
had turnovers by the Jets. You had Jermaine Lewis returning
a kick for a touchdown, which was one of the
other storylines of the season that people don't really remember
(17:57):
when it comes to this Ravens because when you look
at the nuts and bolts, it's okay, it's the Ray
Lewis murder trial, it's the great defense. Oh yeah, that's right.
They had trouble scoring. Trent Dilford was the quarterback. But
as good as their defense was, their special teams were phenomenal,
and Jermaine Lewis and one of the all time great
seasons returning kicks for them. They relied on him and
(18:17):
Jamal Lewis to do everything for that offense. It's Jamal
Lewis on the ground and he had a great season,
he said, And Priest Holmes, who you know, hey, who
knew he was gonna turn to the running back he did.
But Jermaine Lewis, it seemed like every week would have
a big return for a touchdown, would spark things with
a big play on special teams. And when you had
those three facets working defense, working number one, special teams
(18:42):
working right behind it, that greases things up for the
offense a little bit. In the offense doesn't have to
do way too much. They just had to do enough.
And that's what they did. Yeah, I mean winning the
battle of field position. We'll talk about Kyle Richardson all right,
his efforts, Matt Stover taking care of business. Uh that
you're kicker, But Corey Harris your kickoff for earned specialists
averaging twenty three a return. That's that's unheard of in
(19:04):
today's NFL. Likewise, Louis was averaging over sixteen yards a
punt return. They finished twelve and four, but they finished
behind Tennessee, who had had a phenomenal season, so they
have to play three games who advance the Super Bowl.
But before we get to that, this is where the
Ravens defense sat following the regular season. Fewest points per
(19:26):
game allowed in NFL history, three, fewest rush yards ever allowed,
nine d and seventy didn't allow a thousand yards rushing
on the season. Forty nine forced turnovers, not twenty nine
forty nine forced turnovers. You don't get to that number
very often. You'll get you'll get up to you to
(19:48):
fifty turnovers. You're talking about three turnovers a game. I mean,
who averages that three turnover game? We saw it in
with the Bears. Yes, they had to go there one
of the outlines because every week Khalil Matt had a
strip sack in a fumble. So that that's why it works.
But you see how much different. Uh, you know, one
or two injuries, changes, I'm scheming to try to take
(20:10):
a guy away, But I mean this this team from
the defensive front, from Sara Goose and all those guys
to the to the back seven. I mean, they were
just opportunistic and then once they got up on you
forget about it. So that's where the Ravens are and
they're already getting the Hey, is this the best defense
we've ever seen? Conversation? As we get into the playoffs again,
(20:31):
three games they had to play to win the Super Bowl.
Their first wild card game was against the Denver Broncos,
and this game is known for one play, the Shannon
Sharp tip touchdown pass off of Jamal Lewis that goes
for fifty eight yards that really won the game. For Baltimore.
(20:51):
It's a pass in the flat that Trent Dilfer throws
and it goes off the hands of Jamal Lewis. Now
for him, reason, well, it's the Ravens. It's their offense
wasn't that great. But for some reason, Shannon Sharpe was
right there. He grabs the ball a little bit outside
of the flat where Jamal Lewis was, and because he
(21:13):
catches the defense flat footed, he takes it all the
way down the sideline and into the end zone for
a touchdown. And that really just won the game because
you could tell that the will of the Broncos was like,
come on, really, you know that that's the play they get.
They get a big tip play like that, it goes
their way. They win that game twenty one to three.
The Broncos never really threatened and it was a very
(21:36):
typical Ravens game in which the offense did enough. The
defense was able to keep the Broncos, who had a
pretty good offense back then, I was able to keep
them off the board except for a field goal in
the second quarter, and this game was never really in doubt.
Gus fro Yard gust Farrott hundred, twenty four yards in
(21:57):
an interception in this forget gust Farrott played for the Broncos,
didn't he just play for the Redskins. It was him
and Heath Shulert. No, no, no, started that playoff game
for the Broncos. Four sacks and then Jerry's Jackson actually
got some time as well, five and ten fifty four
yards Notre Dame. Right, Yeah, he absorbed a sack as well.
I man, just really nothing going. This was the Mike
Anderson year when he was the thousand yard rusher and
(22:20):
Shanahan's system. Every guy they put it, whether it was
him or orlandis Gary, how we're gonna run for fifteen
hundred yards and be a superstar. Whoever they put in
there was great and that carried the offense. Thinking about
those guys now, they'd be getting ten million dollar contracts
off those years. Different times, different doesn't matter. You're not
gonna resign him, no or let him go, because be
(22:40):
another guy coming in who's gonna play even better. Shark
Steve Man, take a fight, it falls out. Next one
goes in line awaiting the Baltimore Ravens. Following this game
the Tennessee Titans. This was some kind of battle. We'll
get to that, the a f C Championship game in
which Tony Siragusa sits on rich Gannon and the Ravens
go to the Super Bowl, and then the dominant performance
(23:01):
against the New York Giants. All that and more coming
up next right here on Special Teams. The Baltimore Ravens
(23:25):
were now two games away from the Super Bowl, awaiting
them a date with the Tennessee Titans, who were absolutely
loaded this year. Jason Smith Mike Harmon taking you through
this magical year of the Ravens for Special Teams. This
game was ten ten going into the fourth quarter. It
could have been a bigger, larger lead for Tennessee, but
in the first half, Al del Greco, one of the
(23:47):
most reliable field goal kickers in NFL history, missed a
field goal, but there was a penalty, got another chance,
got it blocked, had another miss in the second quarter
as well. Then in the fourth quarter it looked like
the Titans We're finally going to get a field goal
to give them a thirteen ten lead, and maybe that
was gonna be enough. But the field goal gets blocked.
(24:08):
Anthony Mitchell runs it back for a touchdown and that
gives them a seventeen to ten lead. Like we talked
about all season long with this team. Hey, the defense
was great, but boy, look at the special teams making
the play of the year to that point early fourth
quarter looks like a chip shot field goal thirty seven
yards right Al del Greco. We talk about the different
announcers and the way they'd say his name. Here he comes,
(24:31):
it's Al dal Greco, like he was the guy from
the neighbor to us. All so, here he comes out
and you get a block, and here we go again.
But you could see it on the side if you
don't know what's going through his head because he's already
missed a bunch of three times today. And it's what
do I needed? Did he do something different? Did he
tries something that they wind up getting the block and
(24:51):
it goes in for a touchdown? That is typical Ravens
this season. And you see the Tennessee sideline after that
play off. All right, they got us, like they finally
got us. Say it was inching to there and and
even a narrow lead wasn't gonna be safe. But nobody
had really been able to punch Baltimore in the mouth.
I mean, you had a couple of loss in the
middle of the season when they had their sputtering, but
(25:13):
even the defense and special teams were able to carry
them here and you were just waiting for it to
happen again. Their last gasp effort goes into the end
zone for the Ravens again. Ray Lewis picks off a
pass that goes through running back Eddie George's hands. He
goes in for a touchdown. Final scorers twenty four to ten,
and once again you say, well, the offense did barely enough,
(25:36):
but look at the special teams in the defense. It's
a broken record. But I mean, we want to talk
about this to spotlight just the dominant ear that the
Ravens had. They win this game, and now they go
to the a f C Championship game, and this was
the battle of the Titans, not the game with the Titans.
It's the game after because the Raiders. This was in
the middle of their run of boy, look how good
(25:57):
the Raiders are. Rich Gannon had completely taken over this team.
They had his personality, John Gruden's personality. This was a
three year run the Raiders had where they were one
of the top teams in the a f C. But
snake bit year after year after year, you had the
tuck rule. That hurt that I know, and it hurts
(26:19):
you to say it. That's why there was a dramatic
clause as your Jets love himself and I don't want
to talk about it. You just bleeped yourself without saying
a word. You had this great Raiders team fall victim
to the tuck rule, to Tony Siragosa sitting on rich Gannon,
which we'll get to, and then losing to Jon Gruden
in the Super Bowl because John grud knew all the plays,
(26:41):
everything the Raiders were gonna run. When he jumped from
the Raiders to Tampa Bay as their head, did he
tape things? I don't know that he did. But the
fact that Bill Callahan didn't change a lot of the
hand signals that rich Gannon using all those things that
kind of helped Tampa Bay respect him. The whole dopiness
of the hand signals. I know you've got the transmission
through the head, head set and and helmet and everything
(27:02):
these days, but not changing your signals. And you coach
kids soccer and softball, you're changing them. You can't change it.
But you change them up enough in professional football that
they don't come on, man, I mean they just think
about this three year run for the Raiders for a second,
where it was Saragosa and it was Brady in the snow,
(27:24):
and then it was Gruden leaving the only coach you
probably would have beat them in the Super Bowl. And
that's what that could. This team could have went on
and maybe one three super Bowls, but those three things
kept them out. And now they're just known for leaving
a dump after all these years for the second time. Wow,
look at you, Well, aren't we gonna do a special
teams the post boredem on the Oakland Elamy County Coliseum.
(27:47):
I do, I do miss the baseball field. I miss.
That's one thing I do miss. As a guy who
spent a lot of time in that stadium when I
lived in the Bay Area, I'm not gonna miss it.
It was terrible. This was a battle of irresistible force.
It's a movable object. It was the Ravens defense against
the Raiders offense that was averaging twenty nine points a game.
This game had the Ravens fire the first salvo Shannon
(28:11):
Sharp's nineties six yard touchdown on third and eighteen. It
looked like it was a play where maybe the Raiders
were gonna stop them, they were gonna have to punt,
Raiders are gonna get on the board. But early on
it's that slant pass over the middle of the Shannon
Sharp And you've seen this play many times and what
gets overlooked. Brandon Stokely we talked about a little bit ago,
(28:32):
a terrific block that launches Shannon Sharp into the end zone,
and it was, Oh, my goodness, you're gonna look back
and say when at the end and go, what are
the what are the Ravens offense do in the playoffs? Well,
they had the ninety six yard passed to Shannon Sharp.
They had the tip pass to Shannon Sharp against Denver,
and those are really the two only plays the offense
(28:52):
made in the player stands out, its defense, special teams,
and a lot of Matt Stover matts. He had a
big here in fantasy that huge. He was huge. Then
Tony Siragusa sacks Rich Gannon later in the first or
hits him, knocks him down and sits on him. Basically,
Gannon comes out of the game. Bobby Hoyan comes in,
(29:12):
legend Bobby Hoyen. You know he did he win a
playoff game for the Eagles. He played in the playoff
games on Yeah, I think he did when the Eagles.
That was back when the Eagles are going. But we
got Ti Debtmer, We got Coy debtmer We and anybody
else named Debtmer. We got Bobby Hoyan coming in and playing.
I mean, you know, they struck it rich finally with
Donovan McNabb, but boy, they really had some quarterbacks to
(29:33):
go through in the nineties. You really just wanted to
get the Syracuse in there, and a little bit, just
a tiny bit, just wanted to make sure actually he
had no you know, actual record as a playoff passer,
Bobby Hoyne, no record. We got no record for him.
He appeared, but he did not have any record. Hoyan's
first pass was picked off, matched over kicked the field
(29:55):
goal tend nothing was the lead and and that was
really it. From there. They go on to win this
game six team to three and shut down a Raiders
offense that was that good. But without Rich Gannon, what
did you really expect him to be able to do? All? Right?
Gannon goes out, he was eleven of twenty one eight yards.
He'd been sacked four times, two picks Hoying with two interceptions. Uh,
(30:17):
just a miserable run. Overall you look at offensively, they
weren't able to generate anything on the ground. Tyrone Wheatley
twelve carries seven yards and remember Tyron Wheatley, all he
had to do is fall forward. That was about two
and a half yards. He was a giant man. Uh,
you gotta make it past the line of Scrimmagey when
you fall forward from three yards back of the line
(30:37):
of scrimmage only gaining ahead, that's just it. You know,
getting hit in the backfield with regularity not gonna work.
But you know, I guess the Raiders should take some consolation.
They didn't give up a special teams or defensive touchdown
in this one atory victor that so we'll take one here.
It's still a loss and all the would it could
(31:00):
have showed us, But away we go. The Ravens move on.
They had two Super Bowl thirty five awaiting them, the
New York Giants, and at this point the Ravens defense
was it was like when they walked around, there was
an are about them, as if you just had to
stay away. It was what are they gonna wind up
doing to the New York Giants and the Super Bowl?
(31:22):
Just how bad is it gonna get? And it got
pretty bad for the New York Giants, tell you that much.
But but this was one of those what's gonna happen
when they actually kick it off? And for the time
going between the games, a lot of the talk was
here's Ray Lewis back at the Super Bowl a year
after what happened. It became a big topic of conversation
and that's really what dominated everything those two weeks going
(31:45):
into Super Bowl thirty five. Well, one of the things
though that did help out radio road was had not
yet really become what Radio row is, right, and the
build up to what the Super Bowl has become. Media
exposure and and the global view that you have, and
really the circus that the media night became. I mean,
(32:07):
it's paired back a little bit now that it's in
the evening prime time viewing and all. But you had
a run where for a number of years, even when
when Lewis got back there that there was some problems,
shall we say, with certain questions being needing to be
asked because that time, it was about deer antler spray
performance and answers, etcetera. But for ray Lewis and this
(32:30):
one just there's a lot of folks that weren't going
to ask the questions that need to be asked either
or about that history, because what answer were you going
to get? Right you, It wasn't something the NFL really
wanted to address, and ray Lewis became very good at
deflecting away from any of the questions related to that event. Yeah,
(32:53):
his his answer was always he had the one big
answer of God is never gonna put anybody in this
situation to do something bad, and and you know I
I will put someone like me in that situation to
do something that bad. And he would he would always
kind of blow it off by by giving those oblique comments.
Well because when the the repeat right when they were
(33:13):
facing the forty niners became a the first question he
was about the dear Antler spray, and I stood and
listened for about seven minutes as he started to sermonize
as like, Okay, I'm gonna go get one on ones
with the rest of the team. You guys, you guys,
update me. If he ever actually addresses the question that
(33:35):
was being asked here, and look, it's it's you can't
fall to good strategy, as you always say on the
show that we Just wee DIT's on Fox Sports Radio.
It's like, you may not like it, you may think
it's really disingenuous and crazy, but it got people to
just say, Okay, once he's done with this, we actually
have to talk football, because he's now taken up twenty
five minutes of the allotted forty five or fifty minute
(33:58):
interview session. When we got to the game, it was
exactly as it was expected. First quarter, Trent Dilford throws
a thirty eight yard touchdown to Brandon Stokely. Okay, seven nothing,
and already you could feel this game is getting away
from Kerry Collins and the New York Giants. Well, he
got that reward for the big block in the last
time I'll throw you on. Okay, Matt Stover kicks the
(34:19):
field goal. It's tend nothing at halftime and already this
is well, the Giants offense really has not been able
to do anything, and this is the best the NFC
has to offer. Baltimore puts the next points on the board.
Dwayne Starks returns to pick forty nine yards for a touchdown.
But this actually begins one of the more exciting sequences
in Super Bowl history, touchdowns on three consecutive plays. Starks
(34:43):
returns the interception for a touchdown. Make it seventeen nothing
early in the third quarter. Everybody's packing up, time to go,
This is over. And then Ron Dixon returns the ensuing
kickoff ninety seven yards for a touchdown. Now it's seventeen
to seven. Okay, maybe the Giants are getting back in
on this. And then what do we get, Not a
defensive play, not an offensive play, but Jermaine Lewis putting
(35:07):
the Super Bowl away on that ensuing kickoff eighty four
yards for a touchdown. And I remember Brian Billick screaming
down the sideline seeing the NFL Films video after going
j lu j lu j lu, because he knew that
was winning the Super Bowl for them. He goes in
for a score. It's seven. The Giants don't put up
a fight after that. Jamal Lewis would had a touchdown
(35:28):
run in the fourth quarter on his way to a
hundred yard day for Kerry Collins, a miserable day for him,
fifteen out of thirty nine for a hundred and twelve
yards and four interceptions. That was what the Baltimore Ravens
did to him on defense for the game. The Giants
offense total just a hundred and fifty two yards, turned
(35:51):
the ball over four times, and Carry Collins got sacked
four times. Baltimore's defense allowed one touchdown in four playoff games.
So all that stuff I just said, think about that
one touchdown in four playoff games. Your defense allowing one
touchdown in four games, ineptitude of your opponents, or do
(36:13):
you just say you're swarming, uh and taking care of business?
And because obviously you can look at the Super Bowl,
it's one that you kind of fast forward through a
lot of it. And for the Carry Collins side, just
a miserable experience under Darrest all day long. You go
through all the stats and just all right, tackle for
loss here, tackle for loss there, this guy with a
(36:34):
you know, past defense, Uh, he's got three, he's got another.
I mean there was just no room to breathe. I
like that call back three for the Giant nor wrong
song celebrate Faith Hills catalog A tiki Barber ran for
forty nine yards. That was it. I mean this this
Giant's team was pretty well rounded. Was it the greatest offense? No?
(36:59):
But were they interous enough yes? Was the defense good enough? Yes?
But they weren't even a match. And Pete Mitchell sit
there for a minute. You know, I'm waiting for top
gun two just like everybody else's. I'm just waiting for it.
Soon enough, my friends, soon enough. So that was your
victory for the Baltimore Ravens. They win the game, thirty
(37:21):
four seven, and they put a punctuation on what could
be the greatest season ever for a defense. Now, let
me throw this out here before you give me eighty
five Bears, because I remember how great the Bears were
and what they were able to do, and how they
really changed the game defensively with the forty six defense
and different pressures on the quarterback. I get all that
(37:43):
this is more of a modern era of the NFL,
where you had to stop quarterbacks and running backs equally.
Eighty five was still team's gonna run the football, and
that's what we gotta stop and stop that. How many
quarterbacks are really gonna go crazy unless you're playing somebody
like Dan Marino or Joe Montana, It's going to be
an easier thing to do to shut teams down. It's
a little bit harder in two thousand. You also have
(38:05):
more free agency, playing havoc with with rosters. I look
at this and I go, it's hard for me to
argue against them being the greatest defense of all time.
Certainly it's up for debate, as you're always. As you mentioned,
the change of the game just in those fifteen years
is immant. I've seen a numerous articles and breakdowns looking
at the quarterbacks played during this stretch. Let's have a
(38:27):
little fun, shall we. Uh, Well, you got McNair, okay, cool,
Mark Brunel, Jamie Martin, good times. Go back to Mark Burnell,
Scott Mitchell, Achille Smith. Wait a minute, Achille Smith. Drew
Rosenhouse talked the Bengals into picking him third over. There's
a good job by him. Tim Couch, Doug Peterson and
(38:50):
Spurgeon win Hey. Doug Peterson is a Super Bowl winner.
That he is has a head coach. He's a super
Bowl winner. Ken Graham and Cordell Stewart. Cordell Stewart was
really good for about a year exactly. Jay Fiedler, Ryan Leaf.
These are Vinny Testaverday. These are all high draft picks.
You are talking about Brad Johnson the final year of
(39:12):
Troy Yankman. Brett Johnson won a Super Bowl. This is
a couple of years later. Yeah, I mean, you know,
it's not like he did a lot, but he won.
And Jake Plower, he had some high draft picks. You
beat Theater Brock to go to the Super Bowl and
we did. He beat Tony Easton to win the Super Bowl.
But you know how how I always describe it, Jason,
(39:33):
it's you can only beat He's not the schedule. I
just felt like some of the names and watching a
video I don't know going through, I thought that was fantastic.
Outside of spurge in win, I think all those guys
would like number one, number two, top ten picks all around. Yeah,
look how many teams missed on quarterbacks. Here here's some
guys I mean, but I mean that's certainly the mark here, right,
(39:54):
Achille Smith, Ryan Leaf, and um Tim Couch. That's just
three of them. Number one, number number from there. Let's
do it. So it's just an interesting run. I love
the debates across time because you could just argue too
your blue in the face and never come to any
sort of resolution. It's like all the inane goat conversations
(40:15):
we have in the NBA, and certainly that we have
in the NFL with Drew Brees, Tom Brady and you
know Peyton Manning in often doing Peyton Manning things and commercials,
but always in the record books that we have these
debates all the time. It's uh, it's nice and it's
a safe little world. What really baffles me? Do you
(40:36):
talk about something that happened now in the NFL that
had the way it happened back then. Rex Ryan was
in his second year as defensive coordinator for the Ravens,
and he puts together a defense that is arguably the
best all time. Right, you want to say, argue between
them in the eighties. It's him and his old man,
and those are the defenses that we're talking about. So
he puts this defense together, he doesn't get a phone
(40:59):
call for a head coach, coach until the Jets call
him in two thousand nine. How how long do you
think it would take in the NFL normally for a
guy in his second year as defensive coordinator. You put
this kind of defense out there that teams aren't. We
gotta have him. We gotta look at the defluquid he
just put together. We gotta go get this guy. And
(41:19):
fifteen minutes after the final game, and yeah it took No.
I think it's actually during the fourth quarter. Okay, listen,
we're gonna give you a hat to put seven. Come on,
you're killing him. Let's let's just put this on. I mean, really,
it's that it's that fast that he becomes a head
coach and it took him till two thousand and nine
to get that phone call. I've always wondered, and this
is just me spitballing as we talked about those two defenses.
(41:42):
How much people gave Buddy credit for what Rob was
doing and Rex were doing. All he's doing is seeing
the play as old man hasn't, which no, no, no,
But but if they were picking his brain and he
wasn't a de facto right, so like the Ryan brothers,
like and Rob, who was with us for at Fox
Sports Radio for a little bit, but for for Rex
(42:03):
and the job they were doing here, I was wondering
if maybe that was held against him, that maybe it
wasn't all just him at least for a little ways. Yeah,
I don't know, that's enough to say you're not gonna
be a head cover for nine years. No, I mean
that that's a lot because you know, look, you know,
Brian Billy didn't do anything defensively, you know, you know,
he was the head coach in charge of the offense.
Of the defense is the defense, and that's how things
(42:24):
are gonna go. But how he does it takes him
that long. It's baffling because they had other great years
another great yeah, absolutely, and then and he still took
him this long. Well, because you just think about the
way a hot coach comes up nowadays, right, all you
need to have is one quick run in college or
(42:44):
a good year as a coordinator, and the phone's ringing
because we're looking at what six to eight coaches on
average year. I mean, the carousel does not stop spinning.
So his number would have been called a lot faster
and today. But again we also look at a lot
of teams go to the offensive route thinking that that's
what they need to fix. In his nine years with
(43:05):
the team, the defense never ranked lower than six in
the NFL. And it took him that long. I mean,
obviously showed that he had some potential, but he had shortcomings.
As well. But I mean, really to not get that
chance when you're always looking for the next great young
O C or d C. How do they not get
rated for for these guys coming off this performance. I
(43:26):
don't know, personality. I mean, I'm thinking of a number
of things, Like you know, I've had conversations with with
Rex years ago. I mean, I don't I don't know
in an interview process does something go awry? Is just
not a field that they wanted him as a head coach,
Like he's a coordinator and not a headman. He always
(43:46):
wonder where the disconnect happens, especially on teams like this
that are sustained. Right, they weren't a blip on the
radar because if you said, okay, look at the personnel,
he's gotten two thousand plus special teams. Everything worked, so
all right, we'll give it a mulligan. We'll see if
it happens another year. But if you have that kind
of sustained run, eventually people are knocking down the door saying,
(44:08):
all right, we'll cobble together whatever because they also won
and and I don't do it with the same you know,
bile like everybody else. Trent Ifer was the quarterback a
guy who was a replacement for Tony Banks, right, so
that his defense carried the day. So it's very much like, well,
go back to theirs. All right, let's take a look
(44:36):
back now at the two thousand ravens. Where are some
of them? Now? My car? All right? We got Kim Herring,
head of Field Operations. You like this sports at clear
me dot com. What is clear me dot com? They
are a security screening at airports, sporting events, etcetera. With that,
does he do the wand I gets, hey, Kim Herring,
(44:57):
you were on the two. I don't know he's the
head of field opt Probably not. Maybe he does that
once in a while. I don't have a one like
an undercover boss kind of thing. None, he goes in
and sees that to day. Listen, kid, I'm not a
one guy. Okay, sorry, but all right now. Of course,
we've always got coaches Jamie Sharper at Georgetown, after the
Poindexter is at Purdue. You've got Chris Redmond, business dev
(45:19):
business manager at Game on Mouth cards. So there you go,
protecting the grill as you go. Kip Vicker's epic business
solution so accounting I T web design a bunch of
other things you've got. Kyle Richardson mentioned him a little
bit earlier the Punter. He's a VP of sales and
marketing for a place that helps with screening calls for
(45:43):
people in need of medical care. Screening calls for people
in need of medical care, like making sure that's real
people falling well, that that things get processed properly, and
and that you're sensitive to maybe different needs. Right, So
training if if you're dealing with maybe a here in
and certain things they may have faced in the field,
(46:03):
so you know how to come at it from a
psychological perspective as you start asking questions of what can
I do for you? That? All right, just try to
get a little more background information that he's part of
that process. Well, if you work as like local cable
companies and and uh dry cleaning, my dad would love that.
He needs he needs someone to help with that could
be a guy that helps cables out. Again, I need
(46:24):
I need help on this, all right. Yeah, I don't
know that they go that far, Okay, but I'm sure
you can apply the same principle that would that would
help my dad to get to that level. I was
on the phone waiting for forty five minutes today. He's
a guy who helped run support and build games and
such at Yahoo. We we faced a lot of curious
calls and emails through our time there. Uh Walt probably
(46:49):
was among them. So there's our look Special Teams, the
two thousand Ravens, Jason Smith, Mike Harmon. You can hit
us up on Twitter at how about a Fresca? Mike
at Wollen Dome and the ideas. Who would you like
to see on a future edition of Special Teams. We
had a couple of requests did the uh ninety three
bills not too long ago, and so now yeah, you
(47:10):
get a big request in we get enough want for
it to day maybe we'll get it up there for you.
Get on Twitter at how about a frest Cup? Mike
at Swollen Dome. Our show has heard nightly on Fox
Sports Radio Monday through Friday, ten to two am on
the West Coast on the East coast, seven to eleven
on the West Coast. We'll talk to you next week
for another episode of Special Teams. Before you go, rate
(47:41):
and review the show. Whether you're listening on I Heart Radio,
I Heart Radio, apps, Apple, whatever it is, give us
a rate, Tell us. You like it, we will love
you forever and ever and ever. Ye Special Teams is
(48:04):
a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Special Teams, a production of My Heart Radio
Greetings and Welcome inside Special Teams with Jason Smith and
(00:23):
Mike Harmon, our podcast that takes a look every week
back at a specific team, a specific year in sports history,
and the imprint they leave on the world of sports.
We go through football, baseball, basketball. We had a big
Christmas one not too long ago that we went through
Hollia sorry holiday holiday, holiday holiday one. And today we
(00:46):
stick in the National Football League by looking back at
the year that was the two thousand Baltimore Ravens, a
season that started with a cloud of uncertainty and controversy
and ended with a debate. Maybe this might be the
best defense that we have ever seen in the NFL.
I know that's very difficult for you. I know, I know,
(01:09):
I know, any buddy, buddy, I know, I know. I
have a list of people that will agree with me. Okay,
your members and your brothers and people who lived in
Chicago don't count. I have a petition. I think that
I made sure before we talked about the Ravens that
I got a petition. I loaded up. I got Isabel
from down the street. She's very unhappy about this. I
(01:30):
got a lot of people who live right outside Wrigley
Field upset about this. Now they're Cup fans, I don't
have them, oh well, but but I actually know there's
a great bar community there, so I can really get
a lot of signatures as there. We're hitting the final
call at two in the morning, all right, So I
just want to make sure that you all rally around
the Bears. I mean, you know, it's the South side
(01:53):
for the White Sox. Oh no, everybody rallies around the Bears. Alright,
very good. Okay, So with that in mind, we'll get
to the debate coming up later on by podcast. But
the year for the two thousand Baltimore Ravens began under
a cloud of incredible controversy as Ray Lewis, star linebacker,
was involved in a murder charge January thirty one of
(02:16):
two thousand, following of the Super Bowl thirty four party
in Atlanta. This is when the Rams beat the Tennessee Titans.
A fight broke out between Louis and his companions another
group of people that resulted in the stabbing deaths of
two people just since Baker and Richard Lawler. Lewis and
his two companions Reginald Oakley Joseph Sweeting were questioned by
(02:38):
Atlanta police, and eleven days later they were indicted on
murder and aggravated assault charges. This fight occurred in the
Buckhead Village neighborhood, which is the big downtown area in
Atlanta that has seen a lot of activity. The white
suit that ray Lewis was wearing the night of the
killings has never been found. The d A said the
(02:58):
blood stained suit was probably dumped in a garbage bin
outside of fast food restaurant. There was a knife found
at the scene, no fingerprints or DNA on it. Lewis
subsequently testified that Oakley and Sweeting had bought knives earlier
in the Super Bowl week when Lewis was signing autographs,
and the blood of one of the victims was found
inside of ray Lewis's limousine. Two weeks into the trial,
(03:21):
ray Lewis reached a plea agreement in which the murder
charge was dismissed in exchange for his testimony against Oakley
and Sweeting. He wound up getting a year's probation, also
fine two fifty thousand dollars by the NFL, which was
then probably the highest fine levied against someone for something
(03:42):
that wasn't involving drugs or or something else like that.
So now ray Lewis is okay to play football. Oakley
and Sweeting were acquitted of the charges in June. No
other suspects were ever arrested for the incident. This is
something that is very high profile that everybody knows about
this ray Lewis story. What I can't believe is that
(04:04):
this happened and ray Lewis was allowed to play in
the NFL this season. He was involved in a murder charge,
he negotiated a plea agreement. All of this evidence was
out there, and this is back when Paul Tagley was
running the NFL and it was hey, whatever you whatever
you do, but you can still play on Sundays. I
can't believe that he was allowed to play in the
(04:26):
NFL to go right back to play, because if that
happened now, he'd be out of the league for at
least a couple I'd like to think the NFL would say, hey,
you're out of the league for a couple of years
because there's protect the Shield, and there's hey, guys who
were killed, their blood is in your limousine. What was
your involvement in this, which we never know. We have
never known. Even the relatives of the two victims say
(04:47):
it's hard to watch ray Lewis, hard to watch him
play football because he knows more about these deaths, and
no one's ever said anything. I can't believe they would
have allowed him to play different NFL under Roger Goodell,
it's a much different time and if nothing else, you
go on the exempt list and there you sit. I
mean part of this is also, look how swiftly it
(05:07):
got resolved in terms of getting to a plea agreement. Right.
It happened in an off season, so he was able
to get back in. I not often do you have
a case move so swiftly either, So I mean that
that's kind of an outlier in that regard. But from
the NFL perspective undertag lebou and that's just the way
they operated, you know, it was as long as you're
(05:28):
literally on the field, suited up and ready to go,
it didn't matter. And that was one of the things
as Goodell took over, trying to clean it up. Hasn't
been imperfect, absolutely hasn't been an unmitigated disaster in certain circumstances,
no question about it. But there was at least an
attempt too, and I hate the term, but protect the
shield to where there is some standard, some code of conduct, uh,
(05:53):
to where you're you're held to at least a bit
of a higher standard with this, I mean. And it's
always bad, right. It remains something that if you watch
any NFL show that Ray Lewis is part of, you're
gonna see commentary on social media about it. Just like
you know, in terms of Captain c for a Pro Bowl,
(06:14):
you have Michael Vick, you know, for for the season.
It's the same thing or for the Pro Bowl when
it's actually played, but just that same idea that these
things still stand and people wanting to get to an
answer but also trying to figure out where that fandom stops.
He's allowed to play, he goes back and he has
(06:36):
one of the great all time seasons in NFL history,
which also I think bears a lot of the brunt
of boy nothing ever really happened to this guy, because
not only was he able to go back and play,
but he goes back and plays is he leads his
team to the super Bowl. It's one of the great
defenses of all time. And here's ray Lewis a year
after Hey, dude, you were involved in a in a
murder to hey, I'm going to Disney World. You know
(06:58):
that that's a very difficult optic to be able to
go from one year to the next. And hey, he
was all we talked about for a while and then
it was oh no, now he's playing and now he's
a hero. Didn't Trent Jifer actually got to do they
I'm going to Disney World tech But yeah, they didn't
go to ray Lewis part. But the whole thing wasted.
Celebrated DP to Bonham and and especially because this has
(07:21):
become such an historic team. So all this is going on,
the Ravens are getting set for their season and they
make two big moves, one in draft and one in
free agency. They signed Shannon Sharp to play tight end
and they draft running back Jamal Lewis out of Tennessee.
Brian Billick, the offensive genius that he was, was hired
away from the Minnesota Vikings in his second year now
(07:43):
with the Baltimore Ravens, and it's kind of odd that
he winds up being a guy that wins the Super Bowl.
He was an offensive genius and he wins on the
back of one of the greatest defenses ever and an
offense that barely scored enough points over the course of
the sea. And that's that's such an odd thing for
a coach to come in and go, yep, it's me.
My offense is coming in. This is what we're gonna do,
(08:05):
and we're gonna light the world on fire. And it no, no, no,
it's it's really the defense and defensive coordinator Rex Ryan,
who is gonna wind up being the guy getting most
of the credit. Well, that's it. I mean, you had
five games where you didn't score an offensive touchdown, as
we'll go through the regular season and their run to
the playoffs, but five games without a an offensive touchdown.
You got Trent Dilfer under center. Wide receivers most couldn't
(08:29):
name any member of that receiving corps except for Shannon
Sharpe that's Hall of Fame tight end. And then you've
got Jamal Lewis and a young guy named Priest Holmes
getting after it. So you know, offensively, you had a
couple of guys who made their mark and certainly want
a number of fantasy titles for people both in in
Ravens uniforms and out. But yeah, Brian Billick knew what
(08:52):
he had. You know, run the ball, played good defense,
and do what you can to protect the football. So
all those are your quote offensive weapons. Also included Jermaine Lewis,
who we're gonna get to in a bit, Brandon Stokely.
That star studded defense. It wasn't just Ray Lewis. It
was Sam Adams and Rob Burnett and Michael McCrary, Tony Sira, Goose,
(09:12):
Dahlias Thomas, Peter Bullware, Dwayne Starks, Chris McAllister, Rod Woodson
the secondary. And when you look and see these were
the guys they had, it really kind of makes sense
they had that kind of season because you would expect
to succeed when you have eight guys of that caliber
playing and you're starting a Hall of famers, pro perennial
Pro Bowlers, guys who went on to great careers in
(09:35):
media because of their celebrity and their success with the
this team and rolling through their NFL careers. I mean,
you just go back and watch, just do yourself a
favor of a quip a couple of quick YouTube highlight
videos and watch how these guys hit It's a different
NFL in because this was still a bit of the
(09:55):
throwback and a couple of those names you mentioned when
you have Obviously we talked about Ray Lewis, but when
you get into the way, you know Woodson played or
or Sharper at the other linebacker position. I mean, you've
got guys that were heavy hitters and really set the
tone for a game on that first possession. So while
the Ravens are getting set for what they hope is
(10:16):
going to be a great year, let's take a look
at some other things that happened in the year two thousands.
Back when Conan O'Brien was on TV a lot and
everybody watched him kind of a big deal, you know
what I mean now, the whole TBS thing, But back
when you know he was Conan O'Brien was whoa Conan O'Brien.
He was that guy that was writing for the Simpsons,
(10:36):
and everybody was excited about leaves and a the Y
two K bug was all the rage. Remember, everybody thought
every all machinery in the United States was gonna go down.
When we turned the calendar from two thousand, I lost
three days of my life being locked in the Yahoo
facility in case something really bad really did happen. I
got a lot of free meals out of here, you did,
(10:57):
But what a miserable Hey, you gotta be there, why this?
Because if it goes to hell, we've got to be
there to fix it. The Florida election recount, which then
spawned an HBO movie as we didn't know who was
going to win the election between Al Gore and President
George Bush. Gladiator. One best picture that when Russell Crowe
(11:18):
was like the Star, the beautiful mind and Gladiator, that
was like his two or three year run of being
He's the biggest star in the world. And now Joaquin
Phoenix laughs at him and you stab me, And now
I have a We sequalize that in uh, you know,
the Afterlife sequelized Gladiator. Gladiator too. In The Afterlife done
(11:41):
the most popular song of the year, Breathe. Faith Hill
had to run of being the hottest woman on the
planet for a little while, and she was waiting all
day for Sunday night. That's that's you better get ready
and I her whole tight yeah, And I celebrate all
of Tim McGraw's catalog and and obviously they've been aread forever.
So that's great. Breathe again and breathe again. Now that's
(12:05):
that's a song, isn't it. I can hear you breathe.
I can hear you breathe logic and I don't remember
all the lyrics, but it's not yours breathe, a different
breathe again. You're channeling somebody else. I can hear you breathe.
I can feel you need Yeah, Okay, that's the breathe.
There's a there's a couple of breathe songs, and there's
just just Breathe by Pearl, just that breathe. Okay, there's
(12:27):
that too. Okay. So that's where we are in the
year two thousand. Coming up next, the big touchdown drought
a big quarterback change, and the drama continues for the
Baltimore Raven Special Teams with Jason Smith in my card.
(12:56):
All Right, you've looked it up on the computer, No,
I I remember, I didn't, you know, Butcher? The song
can feel no breathe because I can feel you breathe.
It's washing over me and suddenly I'm mounting into you.
Breathe again. There's nothing left to prove, baby to be
(13:16):
he Well, you know what if if Faith Will ever
stops doing concerts, I think you can step in fourth.
I mean, I'm not singing full throaty. Let you know
you let me go in front of a crowd. We
take this show on the road. Let's get this guy
in front of a crowd. Let's get it. So. The
Baltimore Ravens start the year two thousand with three shutouts
in their first five games. They blank Pittsburgh sixteen nothing,
(13:40):
Sincinnati thirty seven nothing, Cleveland twelve nothing. In the middle
of that, a big win over the Jaguars thirty six,
and everything looks great. But then that's when the problems start.
As you referenced earlier, the Ravens go five games without
a touchdown, five games, and quarterback Tony Banks loses his
(14:03):
job to Trent Dilfer after the loss to Tennessee. People
forget Tony Banks started the season as the Ravens quarterback
and he lost his job midway through to Trent Dilfor.
I remember being high on Tony Banks fantasy wise going
into this year, thinking, Oh, I like, Tony Banks had
the big game against Jacksonville and I'm like, oh, Tony Banks,
(14:23):
Tony Banks. I remember really liking him in fantasy, and
then he lost the job, and it was what Tony
Banks has done well, some of the metrics we didn't
we didn't look at necessarily the same way back then.
Fifty four point seven percent completion rate. That wasn't awful, right,
I mean, it's a different and that was kind of
all right, that's the middle of the pack, or maybe
(14:44):
a little below, but certainly not the train wreck it
would be perceived as now as you know, when so
many guys completing two thirds of their passes, as you
get more of the tight end running backs involved and
and less shots down field. But eight touchdowns, eight and
receptions had the five and three record, but they weren't
generating much at all as we got to this stretch, uh,
(15:06):
not moving the ball effectively. The run game obviously then
bogs down, and now you've got a self fulfilling just
a cycle and that happens, and you make the change.
But I remember Tony Banks and trying to figure out
whether he was going to be able to just come
back and steal the job back. But the door never opened.
(15:27):
He winds up playing against the Jaguars and beating them
fifteen ten game without a touchdown. Then they lose to
the Redskins ten three. They lose to the Titans fourteen six,
and he came out of the game, and that was
when they decided, Okay, Trent Dilford is gonna be our guy. Well,
Trent Dilfor didn't like the world on fire his first start.
They lost to the Steelers nine to six. So now
(15:48):
suddenly a season that began. Look at this all world
Baltimore Ravens defense there at the midweight point of the
season five and four, and it's like, are they ever
gonna score a touchdown? But that's the funny thing about it,
right in that three game losing Street, they gave up
thirty three points. Unfortunately they only scored fifteen. He's thinking
about what what would happen now? I mean, look at
(16:10):
what team doesn't score twenty four points in a week's
offense is bugging man? You know, you know the miskick
or you know this red zone opportunity, and everybody's losing
their minds this type of offense in the middle of
what was a promising start to a season, you're calling
for heads roll. It's amazing that they were able to
(16:32):
stick together but then after Dilfer got through that first
start against Pittsburgh, the Ravens started rolling and they won games.
They scored over twenty points in the next five weeks
to win five in a row. They beat Arizona thirteen seven.
They're eleven and four. They get to the final game
(16:54):
of the season. They play the New York Jets. They're
playing at home, and the Jets needed this game to
potentially get into the playoffs. And it started off great
because I remember this game. I remember the Jets scored
two touchdowns in the first quarter. Testaverdi was playing really,
really well, and I thought, hey, we're gonna get the
Ravens here. The Ravens were unbeatable after they solved their
(17:15):
mid season problems because they beat everybody. And now Trent
Dilfer's putting points on the board. We're gonna get them.
We're up fourteen nothing. Well, but look at the points again. Happened, Yeah,
points against Once they started getting things together, seven a
narrow victory over Tennessee Dallas zero points allowed, seven points
allowed to the Browns, sending the bye week, and then
(17:35):
they come back San Diego beat them three, give up
seven to the Cardinals and then all of a sudden,
you've got Diedrich Warren and Richie Anderson running free, and
he's like, wait a minute, what's going on here? You
had turnovers by the Jets. You had Jermaine Lewis returning
a kick for a touchdown, which was one of the
other storylines of the season that people don't really remember
(17:57):
when it comes to this Ravens because when you look
at the nuts and bolts, it's okay, it's the Ray
Lewis murder trial, it's the great defense. Oh yeah, that's right.
They had trouble scoring. Trent Dilford was the quarterback. But
as good as their defense was, their special teams were phenomenal,
and Jermaine Lewis and one of the all time great
seasons returning kicks for them. They relied on him and
(18:17):
Jamal Lewis to do everything for that offense. It's Jamal
Lewis on the ground and he had a great season,
he said, And Priest Holmes, who you know, hey, who
knew he was gonna turn to the running back he did.
But Jermaine Lewis, it seemed like every week would have
a big return for a touchdown, would spark things with
a big play on special teams. And when you had
those three facets working defense, working number one, special teams
(18:42):
working right behind it, that greases things up for the
offense a little bit. In the offense doesn't have to
do way too much. They just had to do enough.
And that's what they did. Yeah, I mean winning the
battle of field position. We'll talk about Kyle Richardson all right,
his efforts, Matt Stover taking care of business. Uh that
you're kicker, But Corey Harris your kickoff for earned specialists
averaging twenty three a return. That's that's unheard of in
(19:04):
today's NFL. Likewise, Louis was averaging over sixteen yards a
punt return. They finished twelve and four, but they finished
behind Tennessee, who had had a phenomenal season, so they
have to play three games who advance the Super Bowl.
But before we get to that, this is where the
Ravens defense sat following the regular season. Fewest points per
(19:26):
game allowed in NFL history, three, fewest rush yards ever allowed,
nine d and seventy didn't allow a thousand yards rushing
on the season. Forty nine forced turnovers, not twenty nine
forty nine forced turnovers. You don't get to that number
very often. You'll get you'll get up to you to
(19:48):
fifty turnovers. You're talking about three turnovers a game. I mean,
who averages that three turnover game? We saw it in
with the Bears. Yes, they had to go there one
of the outlines because every week Khalil Matt had a
strip sack in a fumble. So that that's why it works.
But you see how much different. Uh, you know, one
or two injuries, changes, I'm scheming to try to take
(20:10):
a guy away, But I mean this this team from
the defensive front, from Sara Goose and all those guys
to the to the back seven. I mean, they were
just opportunistic and then once they got up on you
forget about it. So that's where the Ravens are and
they're already getting the Hey, is this the best defense
we've ever seen? Conversation? As we get into the playoffs again,
(20:31):
three games they had to play to win the Super Bowl.
Their first wild card game was against the Denver Broncos,
and this game is known for one play, the Shannon
Sharp tip touchdown pass off of Jamal Lewis that goes
for fifty eight yards that really won the game. For Baltimore.
(20:51):
It's a pass in the flat that Trent Dilfer throws
and it goes off the hands of Jamal Lewis. Now
for him, reason, well, it's the Ravens. It's their offense
wasn't that great. But for some reason, Shannon Sharpe was
right there. He grabs the ball a little bit outside
of the flat where Jamal Lewis was, and because he
(21:13):
catches the defense flat footed, he takes it all the
way down the sideline and into the end zone for
a touchdown. And that really just won the game because
you could tell that the will of the Broncos was like,
come on, really, you know that that's the play they get.
They get a big tip play like that, it goes
their way. They win that game twenty one to three.
The Broncos never really threatened and it was a very
(21:36):
typical Ravens game in which the offense did enough. The
defense was able to keep the Broncos, who had a
pretty good offense back then, I was able to keep
them off the board except for a field goal in
the second quarter, and this game was never really in doubt.
Gus fro Yard gust Farrott hundred, twenty four yards in
(21:57):
an interception in this forget gust Farrott played for the Broncos,
didn't he just play for the Redskins. It was him
and Heath Shulert. No, no, no, started that playoff game
for the Broncos. Four sacks and then Jerry's Jackson actually
got some time as well, five and ten fifty four
yards Notre Dame. Right, Yeah, he absorbed a sack as well.
I man, just really nothing going. This was the Mike
Anderson year when he was the thousand yard rusher and
(22:20):
Shanahan's system. Every guy they put it, whether it was
him or orlandis Gary, how we're gonna run for fifteen
hundred yards and be a superstar. Whoever they put in
there was great and that carried the offense. Thinking about
those guys now, they'd be getting ten million dollar contracts
off those years. Different times, different doesn't matter. You're not
gonna resign him, no or let him go, because be
(22:40):
another guy coming in who's gonna play even better. Shark
Steve Man, take a fight, it falls out. Next one
goes in line awaiting the Baltimore Ravens. Following this game
the Tennessee Titans. This was some kind of battle. We'll
get to that, the a f C Championship game in
which Tony Siragusa sits on rich Gannon and the Ravens
go to the Super Bowl, and then the dominant performance
(23:01):
against the New York Giants. All that and more coming
up next right here on Special Teams. The Baltimore Ravens
(23:25):
were now two games away from the Super Bowl, awaiting
them a date with the Tennessee Titans, who were absolutely
loaded this year. Jason Smith Mike Harmon taking you through
this magical year of the Ravens for Special Teams. This
game was ten ten going into the fourth quarter. It
could have been a bigger, larger lead for Tennessee, but
in the first half, Al del Greco, one of the
(23:47):
most reliable field goal kickers in NFL history, missed a
field goal, but there was a penalty, got another chance,
got it blocked, had another miss in the second quarter
as well. Then in the fourth quarter it looked like
the Titans We're finally going to get a field goal
to give them a thirteen ten lead, and maybe that
was gonna be enough. But the field goal gets blocked.
(24:08):
Anthony Mitchell runs it back for a touchdown and that
gives them a seventeen to ten lead. Like we talked
about all season long with this team. Hey, the defense
was great, but boy, look at the special teams making
the play of the year to that point early fourth
quarter looks like a chip shot field goal thirty seven
yards right Al del Greco. We talk about the different
announcers and the way they'd say his name. Here he comes,
(24:31):
it's Al dal Greco, like he was the guy from
the neighbor to us. All so, here he comes out
and you get a block, and here we go again.
But you could see it on the side if you
don't know what's going through his head because he's already
missed a bunch of three times today. And it's what
do I needed? Did he do something different? Did he
tries something that they wind up getting the block and
(24:51):
it goes in for a touchdown? That is typical Ravens
this season. And you see the Tennessee sideline after that
play off. All right, they got us, like they finally
got us. Say it was inching to there and and
even a narrow lead wasn't gonna be safe. But nobody
had really been able to punch Baltimore in the mouth.
I mean, you had a couple of loss in the
middle of the season when they had their sputtering, but
(25:13):
even the defense and special teams were able to carry
them here and you were just waiting for it to
happen again. Their last gasp effort goes into the end
zone for the Ravens again. Ray Lewis picks off a
pass that goes through running back Eddie George's hands. He
goes in for a touchdown. Final scorers twenty four to ten,
and once again you say, well, the offense did barely enough,
(25:36):
but look at the special teams in the defense. It's
a broken record. But I mean, we want to talk
about this to spotlight just the dominant ear that the
Ravens had. They win this game, and now they go
to the a f C Championship game, and this was
the battle of the Titans, not the game with the Titans.
It's the game after because the Raiders. This was in
the middle of their run of boy, look how good
(25:57):
the Raiders are. Rich Gannon had completely taken over this team.
They had his personality, John Gruden's personality. This was a
three year run the Raiders had where they were one
of the top teams in the a f C. But
snake bit year after year after year, you had the
tuck rule. That hurt that I know, and it hurts
(26:19):
you to say it. That's why there was a dramatic
clause as your Jets love himself and I don't want
to talk about it. You just bleeped yourself without saying
a word. You had this great Raiders team fall victim
to the tuck rule, to Tony Siragosa sitting on rich Gannon,
which we'll get to, and then losing to Jon Gruden
in the Super Bowl because John grud knew all the plays,
(26:41):
everything the Raiders were gonna run. When he jumped from
the Raiders to Tampa Bay as their head, did he
tape things? I don't know that he did. But the
fact that Bill Callahan didn't change a lot of the
hand signals that rich Gannon using all those things that
kind of helped Tampa Bay respect him. The whole dopiness
of the hand signals. I know you've got the transmission
through the head, head set and and helmet and everything
(27:02):
these days, but not changing your signals. And you coach
kids soccer and softball, you're changing them. You can't change it.
But you change them up enough in professional football that
they don't come on, man, I mean they just think
about this three year run for the Raiders for a second,
where it was Saragosa and it was Brady in the snow,
(27:24):
and then it was Gruden leaving the only coach you
probably would have beat them in the Super Bowl. And
that's what that could. This team could have went on
and maybe one three super Bowls, but those three things
kept them out. And now they're just known for leaving
a dump after all these years for the second time. Wow,
look at you, Well, aren't we gonna do a special
teams the post boredem on the Oakland Elamy County Coliseum.
(27:47):
I do, I do miss the baseball field. I miss.
That's one thing I do miss. As a guy who
spent a lot of time in that stadium when I
lived in the Bay Area, I'm not gonna miss it.
It was terrible. This was a battle of irresistible force.
It's a movable object. It was the Ravens defense against
the Raiders offense that was averaging twenty nine points a game.
This game had the Ravens fire the first salvo Shannon
(28:11):
Sharp's nineties six yard touchdown on third and eighteen. It
looked like it was a play where maybe the Raiders
were gonna stop them, they were gonna have to punt,
Raiders are gonna get on the board. But early on
it's that slant pass over the middle of the Shannon
Sharp And you've seen this play many times and what
gets overlooked. Brandon Stokely we talked about a little bit ago,
(28:32):
a terrific block that launches Shannon Sharp into the end zone,
and it was, Oh, my goodness, you're gonna look back
and say when at the end and go, what are
the what are the Ravens offense do in the playoffs? Well,
they had the ninety six yard passed to Shannon Sharp.
They had the tip pass to Shannon Sharp against Denver,
and those are really the two only plays the offense
(28:52):
made in the player stands out, its defense, special teams,
and a lot of Matt Stover matts. He had a
big here in fantasy that huge. He was huge. Then
Tony Siragusa sacks Rich Gannon later in the first or
hits him, knocks him down and sits on him. Basically,
Gannon comes out of the game. Bobby Hoyan comes in,
(29:12):
legend Bobby Hoyen. You know he did he win a
playoff game for the Eagles. He played in the playoff
games on Yeah, I think he did when the Eagles.
That was back when the Eagles are going. But we
got Ti Debtmer, We got Coy debtmer We and anybody
else named Debtmer. We got Bobby Hoyan coming in and playing.
I mean, you know, they struck it rich finally with
Donovan McNabb, but boy, they really had some quarterbacks to
(29:33):
go through in the nineties. You really just wanted to
get the Syracuse in there, and a little bit, just
a tiny bit, just wanted to make sure actually he
had no you know, actual record as a playoff passer,
Bobby Hoyne, no record. We got no record for him.
He appeared, but he did not have any record. Hoyan's
first pass was picked off, matched over kicked the field
(29:55):
goal tend nothing was the lead and and that was
really it. From there. They go on to win this
game six team to three and shut down a Raiders
offense that was that good. But without Rich Gannon, what
did you really expect him to be able to do? All? Right?
Gannon goes out, he was eleven of twenty one eight yards.
He'd been sacked four times, two picks Hoying with two interceptions. Uh,
(30:17):
just a miserable run. Overall you look at offensively, they
weren't able to generate anything on the ground. Tyrone Wheatley
twelve carries seven yards and remember Tyron Wheatley, all he
had to do is fall forward. That was about two
and a half yards. He was a giant man. Uh,
you gotta make it past the line of Scrimmagey when
you fall forward from three yards back of the line
(30:37):
of scrimmage only gaining ahead, that's just it. You know,
getting hit in the backfield with regularity not gonna work.
But you know, I guess the Raiders should take some consolation.
They didn't give up a special teams or defensive touchdown
in this one atory victor that so we'll take one here.
It's still a loss and all the would it could
(31:00):
have showed us, But away we go. The Ravens move on.
They had two Super Bowl thirty five awaiting them, the
New York Giants, and at this point the Ravens defense
was it was like when they walked around, there was
an are about them, as if you just had to
stay away. It was what are they gonna wind up
doing to the New York Giants and the Super Bowl?
(31:22):
Just how bad is it gonna get? And it got
pretty bad for the New York Giants, tell you that much.
But but this was one of those what's gonna happen
when they actually kick it off? And for the time
going between the games, a lot of the talk was
here's Ray Lewis back at the Super Bowl a year
after what happened. It became a big topic of conversation
and that's really what dominated everything those two weeks going
(31:45):
into Super Bowl thirty five. Well, one of the things
though that did help out radio road was had not
yet really become what Radio row is, right, and the
build up to what the Super Bowl has become. Media
exposure and and the global view that you have, and
really the circus that the media night became. I mean,
(32:07):
it's paired back a little bit now that it's in
the evening prime time viewing and all. But you had
a run where for a number of years, even when
when Lewis got back there that there was some problems,
shall we say, with certain questions being needing to be
asked because that time, it was about deer antler spray
performance and answers, etcetera. But for ray Lewis and this
(32:30):
one just there's a lot of folks that weren't going
to ask the questions that need to be asked either
or about that history, because what answer were you going
to get? Right you, It wasn't something the NFL really
wanted to address, and ray Lewis became very good at
deflecting away from any of the questions related to that event. Yeah,
(32:53):
his his answer was always he had the one big
answer of God is never gonna put anybody in this
situation to do something bad, and and you know I
I will put someone like me in that situation to
do something that bad. And he would he would always
kind of blow it off by by giving those oblique comments.
Well because when the the repeat right when they were
(33:13):
facing the forty niners became a the first question he
was about the dear Antler spray, and I stood and
listened for about seven minutes as he started to sermonize
as like, Okay, I'm gonna go get one on ones
with the rest of the team. You guys, you guys,
update me. If he ever actually addresses the question that
(33:35):
was being asked here, and look, it's it's you can't
fall to good strategy, as you always say on the
show that we Just wee DIT's on Fox Sports Radio.
It's like, you may not like it, you may think
it's really disingenuous and crazy, but it got people to
just say, Okay, once he's done with this, we actually
have to talk football, because he's now taken up twenty
five minutes of the allotted forty five or fifty minute
(33:58):
interview session. When we got to the game, it was
exactly as it was expected. First quarter, Trent Dilford throws
a thirty eight yard touchdown to Brandon Stokely. Okay, seven nothing,
and already you could feel this game is getting away
from Kerry Collins and the New York Giants. Well, he
got that reward for the big block in the last
time I'll throw you on. Okay, Matt Stover kicks the
(34:19):
field goal. It's tend nothing at halftime and already this
is well, the Giants offense really has not been able
to do anything, and this is the best the NFC
has to offer. Baltimore puts the next points on the board.
Dwayne Starks returns to pick forty nine yards for a touchdown.
But this actually begins one of the more exciting sequences
in Super Bowl history, touchdowns on three consecutive plays. Starks
(34:43):
returns the interception for a touchdown. Make it seventeen nothing
early in the third quarter. Everybody's packing up, time to go,
This is over. And then Ron Dixon returns the ensuing
kickoff ninety seven yards for a touchdown. Now it's seventeen
to seven. Okay, maybe the Giants are getting back in
on this. And then what do we get, Not a
defensive play, not an offensive play, but Jermaine Lewis putting
(35:07):
the Super Bowl away on that ensuing kickoff eighty four
yards for a touchdown. And I remember Brian Billick screaming
down the sideline seeing the NFL Films video after going
j lu j lu j lu, because he knew that
was winning the Super Bowl for them. He goes in
for a score. It's seven. The Giants don't put up
a fight after that. Jamal Lewis would had a touchdown
(35:28):
run in the fourth quarter on his way to a
hundred yard day for Kerry Collins, a miserable day for him,
fifteen out of thirty nine for a hundred and twelve
yards and four interceptions. That was what the Baltimore Ravens
did to him on defense for the game. The Giants
offense total just a hundred and fifty two yards, turned
(35:51):
the ball over four times, and Carry Collins got sacked
four times. Baltimore's defense allowed one touchdown in four playoff games.
So all that stuff I just said, think about that
one touchdown in four playoff games. Your defense allowing one
touchdown in four games, ineptitude of your opponents, or do
(36:13):
you just say you're swarming, uh and taking care of business?
And because obviously you can look at the Super Bowl,
it's one that you kind of fast forward through a
lot of it. And for the Carry Collins side, just
a miserable experience under Darrest all day long. You go
through all the stats and just all right, tackle for
loss here, tackle for loss there, this guy with a
(36:34):
you know, past defense, Uh, he's got three, he's got another.
I mean there was just no room to breathe. I
like that call back three for the Giant nor wrong
song celebrate Faith Hills catalog A tiki Barber ran for
forty nine yards. That was it. I mean this this
Giant's team was pretty well rounded. Was it the greatest offense? No?
(36:59):
But were they interous enough yes? Was the defense good enough? Yes?
But they weren't even a match. And Pete Mitchell sit
there for a minute. You know, I'm waiting for top
gun two just like everybody else's. I'm just waiting for it.
Soon enough, my friends, soon enough. So that was your
victory for the Baltimore Ravens. They win the game, thirty
(37:21):
four seven, and they put a punctuation on what could
be the greatest season ever for a defense. Now, let
me throw this out here before you give me eighty
five Bears, because I remember how great the Bears were
and what they were able to do, and how they
really changed the game defensively with the forty six defense
and different pressures on the quarterback. I get all that
(37:43):
this is more of a modern era of the NFL,
where you had to stop quarterbacks and running backs equally.
Eighty five was still team's gonna run the football, and
that's what we gotta stop and stop that. How many
quarterbacks are really gonna go crazy unless you're playing somebody
like Dan Marino or Joe Montana, It's going to be
an easier thing to do to shut teams down. It's
a little bit harder in two thousand. You also have
(38:05):
more free agency, playing havoc with with rosters. I look
at this and I go, it's hard for me to
argue against them being the greatest defense of all time.
Certainly it's up for debate, as you're always. As you mentioned,
the change of the game just in those fifteen years
is immant. I've seen a numerous articles and breakdowns looking
at the quarterbacks played during this stretch. Let's have a
(38:27):
little fun, shall we. Uh, Well, you got McNair, okay, cool,
Mark Brunel, Jamie Martin, good times. Go back to Mark Burnell,
Scott Mitchell, Achille Smith. Wait a minute, Achille Smith. Drew
Rosenhouse talked the Bengals into picking him third over. There's
a good job by him. Tim Couch, Doug Peterson and
(38:50):
Spurgeon win Hey. Doug Peterson is a Super Bowl winner.
That he is has a head coach. He's a super
Bowl winner. Ken Graham and Cordell Stewart. Cordell Stewart was
really good for about a year exactly. Jay Fiedler, Ryan Leaf.
These are Vinny Testaverday. These are all high draft picks.
You are talking about Brad Johnson the final year of
(39:12):
Troy Yankman. Brett Johnson won a Super Bowl. This is
a couple of years later. Yeah, I mean, you know,
it's not like he did a lot, but he won.
And Jake Plower, he had some high draft picks. You
beat Theater Brock to go to the Super Bowl and
we did. He beat Tony Easton to win the Super Bowl.
But you know how how I always describe it, Jason,
(39:33):
it's you can only beat He's not the schedule. I
just felt like some of the names and watching a
video I don't know going through, I thought that was fantastic.
Outside of spurge in win, I think all those guys
would like number one, number two, top ten picks all around. Yeah,
look how many teams missed on quarterbacks. Here here's some
guys I mean, but I mean that's certainly the mark here, right,
(39:54):
Achille Smith, Ryan Leaf, and um Tim Couch. That's just
three of them. Number one, number number from there. Let's
do it. So it's just an interesting run. I love
the debates across time because you could just argue too
your blue in the face and never come to any
sort of resolution. It's like all the inane goat conversations
(40:15):
we have in the NBA, and certainly that we have
in the NFL with Drew Brees, Tom Brady and you
know Peyton Manning in often doing Peyton Manning things and commercials,
but always in the record books that we have these
debates all the time. It's uh, it's nice and it's
a safe little world. What really baffles me? Do you
(40:36):
talk about something that happened now in the NFL that
had the way it happened back then. Rex Ryan was
in his second year as defensive coordinator for the Ravens,
and he puts together a defense that is arguably the
best all time. Right, you want to say, argue between
them in the eighties. It's him and his old man,
and those are the defenses that we're talking about. So
he puts this defense together, he doesn't get a phone
(40:59):
call for a head coach, coach until the Jets call
him in two thousand nine. How how long do you
think it would take in the NFL normally for a
guy in his second year as defensive coordinator. You put
this kind of defense out there that teams aren't. We
gotta have him. We gotta look at the defluquid he
just put together. We gotta go get this guy. And
(41:19):
fifteen minutes after the final game, and yeah it took No.
I think it's actually during the fourth quarter. Okay, listen,
we're gonna give you a hat to put seven. Come on,
you're killing him. Let's let's just put this on. I mean, really,
it's that it's that fast that he becomes a head
coach and it took him till two thousand and nine
to get that phone call. I've always wondered, and this
is just me spitballing as we talked about those two defenses.
(41:42):
How much people gave Buddy credit for what Rob was
doing and Rex were doing. All he's doing is seeing
the play as old man hasn't, which no, no, no,
But but if they were picking his brain and he
wasn't a de facto right, so like the Ryan brothers,
like and Rob, who was with us for at Fox
Sports Radio for a little bit, but for for Rex
(42:03):
and the job they were doing here, I was wondering
if maybe that was held against him, that maybe it
wasn't all just him at least for a little ways. Yeah,
I don't know, that's enough to say you're not gonna
be a head cover for nine years. No, I mean
that that's a lot because you know, look, you know,
Brian Billy didn't do anything defensively, you know, you know,
he was the head coach in charge of the offense.
Of the defense is the defense, and that's how things
(42:24):
are gonna go. But how he does it takes him
that long. It's baffling because they had other great years
another great yeah, absolutely, and then and he still took
him this long. Well, because you just think about the
way a hot coach comes up nowadays, right, all you
need to have is one quick run in college or
(42:44):
a good year as a coordinator, and the phone's ringing
because we're looking at what six to eight coaches on
average year. I mean, the carousel does not stop spinning.
So his number would have been called a lot faster
and today. But again we also look at a lot
of teams go to the offensive route thinking that that's
what they need to fix. In his nine years with
(43:05):
the team, the defense never ranked lower than six in
the NFL. And it took him that long. I mean,
obviously showed that he had some potential, but he had shortcomings.
As well. But I mean, really to not get that
chance when you're always looking for the next great young
O C or d C. How do they not get
rated for for these guys coming off this performance. I
(43:26):
don't know, personality. I mean, I'm thinking of a number
of things, Like you know, I've had conversations with with
Rex years ago. I mean, I don't I don't know
in an interview process does something go awry? Is just
not a field that they wanted him as a head coach,
Like he's a coordinator and not a headman. He always
(43:46):
wonder where the disconnect happens, especially on teams like this
that are sustained. Right, they weren't a blip on the
radar because if you said, okay, look at the personnel,
he's gotten two thousand plus special teams. Everything worked, so
all right, we'll give it a mulligan. We'll see if
it happens another year. But if you have that kind
of sustained run, eventually people are knocking down the door saying,
(44:08):
all right, we'll cobble together whatever because they also won
and and I don't do it with the same you know,
bile like everybody else. Trent Ifer was the quarterback a
guy who was a replacement for Tony Banks, right, so
that his defense carried the day. So it's very much like, well,
go back to theirs. All right, let's take a look
(44:36):
back now at the two thousand ravens. Where are some
of them? Now? My car? All right? We got Kim Herring,
head of Field Operations. You like this sports at clear
me dot com. What is clear me dot com? They
are a security screening at airports, sporting events, etcetera. With that,
does he do the wand I gets, hey, Kim Herring,
(44:57):
you were on the two. I don't know he's the
head of field opt Probably not. Maybe he does that
once in a while. I don't have a one like
an undercover boss kind of thing. None, he goes in
and sees that to day. Listen, kid, I'm not a
one guy. Okay, sorry, but all right now. Of course,
we've always got coaches Jamie Sharper at Georgetown, after the
Poindexter is at Purdue. You've got Chris Redmond, business dev
(45:19):
business manager at Game on Mouth cards. So there you go,
protecting the grill as you go. Kip Vicker's epic business
solution so accounting I T web design a bunch of
other things you've got. Kyle Richardson mentioned him a little
bit earlier the Punter. He's a VP of sales and
marketing for a place that helps with screening calls for
(45:43):
people in need of medical care. Screening calls for people
in need of medical care, like making sure that's real
people falling well, that that things get processed properly, and
and that you're sensitive to maybe different needs. Right, So
training if if you're dealing with maybe a here in
and certain things they may have faced in the field,
(46:03):
so you know how to come at it from a
psychological perspective as you start asking questions of what can
I do for you? That? All right, just try to
get a little more background information that he's part of
that process. Well, if you work as like local cable
companies and and uh dry cleaning, my dad would love that.
He needs he needs someone to help with that could
be a guy that helps cables out. Again, I need
(46:24):
I need help on this, all right. Yeah, I don't
know that they go that far, Okay, but I'm sure
you can apply the same principle that would that would
help my dad to get to that level. I was
on the phone waiting for forty five minutes today. He's
a guy who helped run support and build games and
such at Yahoo. We we faced a lot of curious
calls and emails through our time there. Uh Walt probably
(46:49):
was among them. So there's our look Special Teams, the
two thousand Ravens, Jason Smith, Mike Harmon. You can hit
us up on Twitter at how about a Fresca? Mike
at Wollen Dome and the ideas. Who would you like
to see on a future edition of Special Teams. We
had a couple of requests did the uh ninety three
bills not too long ago, and so now yeah, you
(47:10):
get a big request in we get enough want for
it to day maybe we'll get it up there for you.
Get on Twitter at how about a frest Cup? Mike
at Swollen Dome. Our show has heard nightly on Fox
Sports Radio Monday through Friday, ten to two am on
the West Coast on the East coast, seven to eleven
on the West Coast. We'll talk to you next week
for another episode of Special Teams. Before you go, rate
(47:41):
and review the show. Whether you're listening on I Heart Radio,
I Heart Radio, apps, Apple, whatever it is, give us
a rate, Tell us. You like it, we will love
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(48:04):
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