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Ray Lewis Murder

January 15, 2012 by · Comments Off on Ray Lewis Murder 

Ray Lewis Murder, Ray Lewis is an angry man. The Baltimore Ravens middle linebacker bristles at the notion that he’s not so fearsome anymore in his 16th season, that his fellow Miami Hurricane and longtime Ravens compatriot Ed Reed is afraid to tackle now, that these 12-4 Ravens are living off their defensive reps of the past.

After all, it’s the 11-6 Houston Texans who will come into Sunday’s playoff game at Baltimore with the higher-rated defense. Texans rookie J.J. Watt is the one who pulled off the signature defensive play of the NFL playoffs’ first weekend — that no-way, close-range interception and Pick 6 return.

“I always tell people — even a fool is kind of wise until he opens his mouth,” Lewis says. “Make sure your facts are in place before you speak like that. But like I said, you hear so many people trying to speak about what they think they know and they don’t have a clue, they really don’t have a clue.”

This bromance built on a few surprise words during the Texans-Ravens Monday nighter at Reliant Stadium and an impromptu LA chill session at the ESPYs.

Lewis is speaking on a media conference call with Houston reporters, actually talking about a Baltimore columnist who urged Ravens coach John Harbaugh to bench Lewis and Reed for portions of these playoff games. But he could just as easily be trying to level Father Time with a forearm shiver.

“It’s impossible to get into that type of jibber jabber,” Lewis says.

Two hundred and twenty three games into his NFL career, No. 52 is still ready for a fight, still ready to challenge you for every inch. He’ll milk this latest slight for all its worth, use it as fuel for a game in which the Ravens are heavy favorites — with the Texans being as much as a nine-point underdogs in some sports books, bringing a rookie quarterback into a stadium where their experienced quarterback took a beating in Week 6.

It doesn’t mater that the critics may be right. Ray Lewis isn’t the same force at age 36. It doesn’t even matter that he long ago pulled off one of the great American sports transformations, somehow emerging from being pulled into a Super Bowl murder trial (Lewis plead guilty to a misdemeanor obstruction of justice charge) as arguably the NFL player that fellow players respect most and a Madden video game cover star.

Lewis still feeds off slights. Which is why he loves Texans Pro Bowl tailback Arian Foster. While Lewis seems to live and breathe football 24-7, Foster is one of the most unconventional thinkers in the NFL, a philosophy major whose tweets sometimes leave his fans wondering if they’re in on the joke.

Doesn’t matter though. The differences are nothing. Because Foster has the fuel too.

“He’s driven by a different burner inside,” Lewis says of the one Texan with the power to shatter Baltimore’s Super Bowl vision by being an outlier. “He was an undrafted guy with a lot of talent, so he is fueled by something different.

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