Ravens' Ray Lewis not fooled by Big Ben

While his teammates were cavorting in the visitors locker room last Saturday night at Tennessee, where the Baltimore Ravens had just dispatched the Titans to advance to this weekend's AFC championship game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, linebacker Ray Lewis instead studied his shoes.

Fine shoes to compliment a fine suit. So when he laced them up, he made certain he did so with precision. The near-pandemonium behind him? No matter. There were shoes to be laced. Left one, then the right one. One minute. Two minutes. Still lacing.

So meticulous. So serene.

So ... been there, done that.

Lewis happens to be the MVP of Super Bowl XXXV.

He's been there.

He's done that.

And now that the Ravens are in prime position to reach Super status again, something the Pittsburgh Steelers will have a thing or two to say about, Lewis — he of the famous pregame gyrations just before the team takes the field — is something of a steady Eddie.

Here we go again.

Two losses in the regular season to the Steelers already.

Untied laces.

There was the 23-20 road overtime loss in late September and the 13-9 setback last month.

From Lewis, a determined yawn.

"We always have got one philosophy in this defense," he says. "If they don't score, they don't win. Bottom line."

In that way of thinking, then, the losses to the Steelers surely sting.

Right, Ray?

"Not at all, he said this week. "As soon as the game was over, you are over it. You don't dwell on it too much in this business. You take your good with your bad, and you move on. You grab your corrections, and after you grab your corrections, you make sure it doesn't happen again."

Still, chief among Lewis' tasks this weekend will be grabbing the guy across the line.

The quarterback.

Ben Roethlisberger.

"He's the ultimate competitor," Lewis says. "He plays football the way old-school people play football — just make a play. It doesn't have to be pretty, it doesn't have to be drawn up, sit in the pocket and pass the ball like the conventional quarterback.

"He's a football player. He's going to go out and do anything to keep his team motivated and keep the chains moving, things like that. And that's probably one of the greatest assets he has, is really keeping the play going."

One could say he plays the dunce — and does so very well.

So hints defensive tackle Haloti Ngata.

"It's just kind of deceiving because he looks big and slow and doesn't look like he can move around," he says. "He bends in weird ways and gets out of things. It's pretty crazy how he does it, and we just have to make sure we get him down when we get a hold of him."

Meanwhile, Lewis ties his shoes.

And in doing so, he sends a message to the newbies.

"I think that's what our whole season has been about," he says. "Our whole season has been about just chemistry. A lot of people don't know that really when you look at our ball club and the way we practice and look at the things that we do, we prepare a certain way with each other.

"Coaches give us the game plan and give us their part of it, but our part is being accountable to each other. We have more guys over at each other's houses than anything. There's nothing that we couldn't go through during the course of the season, whether it was not having a bye week, this and that, this person is hurt, that person is hurt… But the togetherness and the brotherhood we have is kind of more overwhelming than anything."

(usatoday.com)