Dear Meggie Baby,
You are right as rain. Hell, you are as proper as any manner of precipitation; the victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers was indeed a momentous final step before our triple-jump towards the post season (Author’s Note: In this particular metaphor, the Lions and the Raiders are the sand crushed underfoot during the landing). Not only did we take care of our business at home, we put ourselves in wild card position if one assumes that the Jaguars will eventually fall apart against their upcoming schedule (Houston, Miami, Indianapolis, at New England, at Cleveland). Plus, WE BEAT THE STEELERS. You know it’s a good rivalry game when Alex and I, after an overtime victory, don’t text each other celebrations, instead simply saying: “F*** the Steelers”.
So, what did we learn? Ray Rice is amazing. He got us a first down in overtime against a really tough Steelers Defense when everyone in M & T Bank knew we were going to run it three straight times. He picked up a fifteen yard first down on a dump off pass when he had no business getting five. He caught the ball in the secondary in stride and made them pay for ever thinking one on one could slow him down.
Did we see this coming? I know on this site (as well as in numerous newspaper articles), a moderate to large fuss was made about how good Rice looked in training camp, certainly good enough to earn the starting nod. But this was the year that Joe Flacco, the young quarterback who took us to the AFC Championship game, was supposed to be fully unveiled to an unsuspecting NFL. Instead, it’s Ray Rice who gets most of the buzz, and deservedly so. If you watch NFL Game Day highlights, you can hear Rich Eisen accentuate the “R”s in “Ray Rice from Rutgers, Running for the Ravens”. It might get annoying after the first few times, but it’s fascinating that, seemingly every week, there is a play from scrimmage long enough to fit in the entire bit.
It’s not like Joe hasn’t had a good year, but he has proven something that might be more important that being the most accurate field general in the league: dude is tough. He takes some big hits throughout the course of a game, but never seems scared to step up in the pocket and deliver a strike from that gorgeous arm. Matthew Stafford of the Detroit Lions helms a losing team, but the way he finished out the game against Browns was something incredible and proves everything a player would ever need to know about the man they follow into battle for the next five years. While we don’t have the audio, we’ve all seen Flacco take some shots and get off the turf and back to work.
Plus, we’re finally seeing some emotion out of him. When he threw that pick to end the Colts game he seemed just as pissed as I was; which is all I’ve ever asked of professional athletes. I want them to care as much as I do, not just because they’re competitors and competitors like to win, but because their Mondays through Saturdays are somehow worse if they lose. I want them to represent our city because the people of Baltimore spend millions of dollars every year to represent our team.
I think this Ravens team gets it. Maybe they realized who they are and what they mean a few games too late, but for these last few weeks we are going to see a group of men leave everything they have on a field. There will be no blowouts against this defense; there will be no shutouts against this offense. For all intents and purposes, this is the playoffs to a team people call “built for January”.
That's right, we were made for this shit. Let’s go Ravens.
Your Bosom Buddy,
Dan
P.S. Sorry I forgot I began this as a letter until I went back to read through and had to slap a closing on the end; I might still be hung over from a HUGE Ravens victory.
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