Opinion: Ready for Ray Lewis and Super Bowl Sunday
January 30, 2013
Jake Crissman
Contact Jake Crissman at [email protected].
Are you ready for some football? This Sunday, the San Francisco 49ers will clash with the Baltimore Ravens to see who will take home the championship title in Super Bowl XLVII (that’s 47, for anyone whose name isn’t Caesar).
The big game will take place in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in the beautiful city of New Orleans. Kickoff is set for 6:30 p.m. Eastern time, so don’t miss it. If you tune in too late, you might miss the national anthem, sung by the very talented Alicia Keys. Even people that don’t care about the game will still be tuning in to see Beyonce perform the halftime show — er, I mean the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show.
The Ravens won the AFC with a dominating victory over the New England Patriots. The 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons to clinch the top spot in the NFC. These two teams are dying to be Super Bowl champions, but there can only be one.
These two teams of modern-day gladiators are both coached by a Harbaugh. John Harbaugh is the coach of the Ravens, and Jim Harbaugh coaches the 49ers. Yes, if you didn’t already know or guess, the two of them are brothers. They are not twins, though their resemblance is pretty damn close. John is Jim’s elder by a little more than a year.
This game will be the ultimate showdown, as far as their sibling rivalry goes. I wonder whom their parents are rooting for.
I, for one, want to see the Ravens pull out with the victory — and yes, it is solely for Ray Lewis’ sake. This season is supposedly Lewis’ last. The Baltimore linebacker has had a hard and long career in the NFL, spanning 17 years. He’s been to the Pro Bowl 13 times, the Super Bowl twice now, and been on trial for murder once.
Wouldn’t it be a perfect storybook ending for Lewis if the Ravens won? It’s the kind of stuff that movies are made out of. Now, you might be saying to yourself, “Wait a minute, Jake, aren’t you a Browns fan? Shouldn’t you hate the Ravens and Ray Lewis?” You would be correct. However, I’m a sucker for epic, against-all-odds situations, and this final season of Ray Lewis seems to fit the bill pretty well.
(Super Bowl fun fact: Cleveland is the only current NFL city that has neither hosted, nor had their team play in, a Super Bowl. What gives, man?)
I suspect that the game will be a good one. I feel like the Ravens are just going to destroy San Francisco. They have one of the greatest defenses in the league, which is led by one hell of a middle linebacker. Their offense, with quarterback Joe Flacco and running back Ray Rice, isn’t too shabby either.
So what do you say? Why don’t you grab some junk food, sit around the television and watch the culmination of 20 weeks of football come to a head? Maybe, just maybe, for one last final time we’ll get to see Ray Lewis in tears and quoting the Bible again.