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Today, the two greatest showmen in the NFL will get together. How they perform will determine the winner of the game between the Colts and the Baltimore Ravens.
No, Chad Ochocinco and Terrell Owens won’t be on the field. They are characters, attention-getters.
Colts quarterback Peyton Manning and Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis are something different. They are magicians, able to entertain and perform feats that boggle the minds of those watching and playing.
They’ll play a sort of chess match, except chess isn’t usually so entertaining.
Manning, who is quarterbacking a 9-0 Colts team, is known for his mechanizations before the snap, the hooting and hollering that gets opposing defenses off guard. He runs no-huddle offenses to get defenses winded. He reads and reacts better than anyone.
Lewis, also a Super Bowl winner, is a similar tactician, who has made the Ravens (5-4) one of the most menacing defenses of this decade. He’s an intimidating force on the field, as he tries to inspire his teammates and intimidate the opposition by using some pretty colorful phrases.
“The thing about it is, you see some guys that only talk when the cameras are around them. (For Lewis), that’s real,” Manning said. “That’s how he is in the first quarter. That’s how he is in the fourth quarter. It’s consistent. I appreciate that about the way he plays.”
Lewis relishes his melodramatic matchups with Manning, even if the Colts have won seven of the nine games the teams have played.
“Some of it is a bunch of baloney, from him and me, but then some of it means a lot. That’s kind of the chess match – what’s real and what’s not,” Lewis said. “If we bait him into thinking we’re in something that we’re not, we win that down. If he baits us into finding a weakness, then he wins that down, things like that. It’s going to be a 60-minute chess match, it always has.”
Manning’s offense is ranked third in the NFL with 401.1 yards per game, including the top-ranked passing offense with 315.1 yards per game. The Ravens have the seventh-best defense, allowing 302.8 yards per game, with the fifth-ranked rushing defense allowing 93.9 yards per game.
This will be great theater, and that’s not even considering the playoff ramifications for both teams and that the Colts’ move from Baltimore in 1984 still angers fans in the Chesapeake Bay area.
Manning is arguably the greatest quarterback of all time. Lewis, who is fifth in the NFL this season with 58 solo tackles, is arguably the greatest linebacker of this generation.
“(Lewis) calls their version of audibles, or whatnot. He’s a tremendous player,” said Manning, who leads the NFL in passing yards (2,872) and touchdown passes (20).
“Every year you hope that you might see some slowdown in (Lewis), but you just don’t see it.
“He obviously keeps himself in great shape in the way he trains in the offseason. The energy has never gone anywhere but up. He seems to be more energetic every single year.
“I know when we play against him, he’ll have that bunch ready to play.”
Make no mistake, this game is all about which star gets their team playing better. It’ll be a show.
