RAVEN MAD DEFENCE HAS RAY PUMPED
RAY LEWIS was responsible for more pain and broken bones than any player in NFL history.
In a wrecking-ball 17-year career, Lewis was a destructive force, who dragged the fledgling Baltimore Ravens from obscurity to Super Bowl champions in January 2001.
He led a defence that ruled the league with an iron fist and he is convinced that what he is seeing from the Ravens’ 2017 defence could be the beginning of another champion in the making.
Baltimore have won their opening two games of the season and will try to make it three for three at Wembley this afternoon when they take on the Jacksonville Jaguars.
And Lewis, who played the game with a ferocious intensity, is looking forward to being at Wembley today to see a defence made in his own image.
The 42-year-old Lewis, who retired five years ago, said: “It’s the roughest thing I’ve seen and everybody is mad because they are so rough. But I freaking love it.
“Somebody asked me the other day ‘how do you compare them to the 2000 defence?’ And I said, ‘don’t compare them, let them be. They’re they 2017 Baltimore Ravens. Let the defence be who they are’.”
That defence has been electric in the first two games, forcing a staggering 10 turnovers, including two interceptions each for Lardarius Webb and Brandon Carr.
Linebacker Terrell Suggs, 35 next month and who played alongside Lewis, is into his 15th season with Baltimore and is still a potent force and Lewis can’t get enough of his old team.
Lewis said: “Defensively, it’s good to watch and to see the opposition mad. But that’s because they’re getting the heck beat out of them. That’s what you really appreciate when you see a Ravens defence play like that.
“That’s what we created, so for them to be doing what they are doing, it’s bigger than an individual. It’s a team thing.”