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 Super Bowl MVP Ray Lewis speaks with ESPN's Andrea Kremer.
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Super Bowl MVP Ray Lewis is this week's Sunday Conversation.
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| | Monday, January 29
Tumultuous year ends with MVP award
Associated Press
TAMPA, Fla. -- Ray Lewis answered all the questions on
Sunday.
The Baltimore Ravens linebacker, NFL Defensive Player of the
Year, gave his team a rallying point in the Super Bowl as he sat
through a tough, week-long grilling from the media. He was often
sullen, never repentant.
Then, on game day, he let out all the emotion with a defining
defensive performance that led the Ravens to the NFL championship
over the New York Giants, 34-7, and was voted the game's most
valuable player.
Lewis came to Tampa, hoping to talk football, preferring to
discuss a dominant Baltimore defense that had set an NFL record for
a 16-game season by allowing only 165 points and then continued
that in the playoffs by surrendering only one touchdown and 16
points in three games.
He would have liked to talk about 12 tackles and an interception
returned for a touchdown in the divisional playoff against
Tennessee, or seven tackles and a fumble recovery in the AFC
championship game against Oakland.
Instead, he was cross-examined over and over about his trial
following the murders of two men in Atlanta after the Super
Bowl last year. Coach Brian Billick and his players tried to protect the big
linebacker, tried to turn the questioning away from the Atlanta
affair.
The trial was over, they said. Lewis had been acquitted,
pleading guilty to a lesser charge. He had been fined $250,000 by
the league, a punishment he has appealed. Now, move on and leave
the man alone.
Still, the interrogation continued, and Lewis -- a floppy hat
pulled down tight over his forehead -- sat through them.
On Sunday, there were no more questions, just a football game to
be played. And Lewis has never needed any protection there.
Back in the environment where he has flourished, he terrorized
the Giants' offense. He seemed to be all over the place, stuffing
running plays, helping the secondary, deflecting a couple of
passes, including one that turned into an interception. He was a
constant presence on defense, one New York was never able to avoid.
Lewis shrugged off a Baltimore attack that struggled through
five games back in October without scoring a touchdown. That anemic
offense hardly disturbed him, he said. The Ravens' defenders
couldn't control that. What they could control was how many
touchdowns the other team scored.
He played defense the same way he talked it. "We don't give up
points," Lewis said during the week. "So whatever you give us,
three points, seven points, that will be enough for us."
He was right about that.
The only points the Giants scored came on a kickoff return.
Lewis doesn't play on special teams, so there was nothing he could
do about that.
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