Odafe Oweh noticed the hand of destiny in it.
The Ravens didn’t play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers throughout the exterior linebacker’s rookie season. That meant no likelihood for Oweh to chase the best quarterback in historical past, Tom Brady. When Brady retired in February, the chance appeared gone for good.
Of course, Brady unretired lower than two months later, and Oweh solely wanted to look on the Ravens’ 2022 slate of opponents to know his want would come true. “I’m playing against the G.O.A.T,” or biggest of all time, “and that brings me jitters,” Oweh stated Monday, three days forward of the Ravens’ matchup with Brady and the Buccaneers. “You’re going to focus on what you do, but obviously, it’s Tom, so the whole sport revolves around him. We know that he’s back there.”
Oweh’s dad and mom plan to attend the sport, and he joked they might be “there to see Tom” reasonably than him.
So it goes for an NFL demigod who has lived massive within the public creativeness since many present Ravens had been in kindergarten. For previous Ravens greats, like these honored final weekend for the tenth anniversary of the crew’s 2012 championship, Brady was a towering soccer rival. Now, as he prepares for what could possibly be his ultimate recreation in opposition to the Ravens, he’s one thing past that.
Younger gamers stated they’ll really feel chills after they line up in opposition to him for the primary time, earlier than the conventional game-day adrenaline takes over.
“When he retired, I was like, ‘Man, I wish I got to play him,’” Ravens linebacker Patrick Queen stated. “I got to play Aaron Rodgers, so I wanted to play Brady, too. Then he came back and it was like, ‘So, I get a chance now.’”
Veteran exterior linebacker Jason Pierre-Paul watched this phenomenon from the opposite facet when he performed with Brady in Tampa, the place they gained a Super Bowl collectively. “He’s the G.O.A.T, man; you can’t take that from him,” Pierre-Paul stated. “No matter what kind of season he’s having, he’s still that same person. … He makes the whole team change. Just being there two years with him, I could see that everybody just levitates to him and just wants to win for him.”
Among the good quarterbacks who rained distress on Baltimore, Brady occupied a distinct area than Ben Roethlisberger, the inescapable neighbor you grudgingly respect, or Peyton Manning, service of all of the previous Colts baggage. There had been complete years when his New England Patriots and the Ravens didn’t cross paths. Their whole historical past consists of a dozen video games, eight within the common season and 4 within the playoffs. Brady gained eight of these. The Ravens bested him on a number of memorable events.
That historical past is an abstraction to many present Ravens, who’ve confronted Brady as soon as or under no circumstances. Nonetheless, he has been a big character within the story of Baltimore soccer during the last 20 years, simply as he has been a monumental determine — maybe the monumental determine — within the current historical past of the league.
When the Ravens first met Brady in November 2004, Kyle Boller was the opposite beginning quarterback. Ed Reed was in his third season, Terrell Suggs in his second. Brady bought the higher of issues, 24-3, however then, Brady would get the higher of virtually everybody over the lengthy haul.
In 2007, a struggling Ravens crew took a stab at upsetting the Patriots’ excellent season on “Monday Night Football,” going up seven within the fourth quarter earlier than Brady rallied his troops for a three-point victory.
The coronary heart of the matter — the one interval once we might actually name it a rivalry — started in January 2010, when the Ravens traveled to Foxborough, Massachusetts, for the wild-card spherical of the playoffs and ended Brady’s season, 33-14.
The Patriots answered with a three-point win 9 months later. Then, within the cruelest chapter from a Baltimore perspective, they had been the crew standing on the opposite facet when Lee Evans dropped a landing go and Billy Cundiff missed a area objective try from 32 yards within the waning seconds of a 23-20 AFC Championship thriller.
In 2012, the Ravens took their flip. They rallied from 9 factors down within the fourth quarter to beat the Patriots at M&T Bank Stadium. Wide receiver Torrey Smith performed brilliantly in honor of his youthful brother, who had died in a motorbike crash the evening earlier than. Then, they traveled to Foxborough for an AFC Championship rematch, which they gained, 28-13, as Joe Flacco outdueled the good Brady. The Ravens would go on to win the Super Bowl, one thing Brady and his crew had not accomplished since 2004.
These had been titanic video games. Suggs wouldn’t name Brady by identify. Reed and Ray Lewis delighted of their bouts of violent, high-stakes chess with the ingenious quarterback and his equally ingenious coach, Bill Belichick. Flacco at all times appeared to rise to the event.
The final gasp of this golden age got here in January 2015. Lewis and Reed had been retired by then, however the Ravens, using one other stellar efficiency from Flacco, took a two-touchdown lead within the divisional spherical of the playoffs. Belichick answered with tactical excessive jinks, utilizing a four-man offensive line in a transfer Ravens coach John Harbaugh decried as “deceptive” and “illegal.” Regardless, Brady performed brilliantly because the Patriots roared again to win, 35-31.
From there, the embers cooled. Brady led the Patriots to a 30-23 win in Foxborough in 2016. Lamar Jackson arrived on the scene in 2018, and when he and Brady confronted off in 2019, their interactions had been gracious, virtually candy. Jackson known as Brady the “G.O.A.T.” time and again. They shared a heat handshake after the Ravens hammered the Patriots, 37-20.
And that was the final time they met.
“I just think very highly of him,” Brady advised Tampa reporters Tuesday when requested about Jackson. “He’s an amazing player, and he challenges a defense. He has a really unique skill set with his ability to improvise and make plays using his legs.”
As the Ravens put together for his or her first up-close glimpse of Brady in a Buccaneers uniform, the 45-year-old famous person is coping with a broader disaster of religion round his efficiency and that of his crew, which has dropped 4 of 5 video games. Tampa Bay was favored to win the NFC getting into the season however left its most up-to-date loss, 21-3 to the lowly Carolina Panthers, in a “dark place,” coach Todd Bowles advised the Tampa Bay Times.
Brady stays an correct passer who will get his throws off faster than any quarterback within the league, however he’s main a crew that averages simply 17.7 factors a recreation, down from 30.1 in 2021. Is it his fault? Is it the play calling of offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, who’s underneath simply as a lot hearth from Buccaneers followers as Greg Roman is from Ravens followers? Have prime targets Mike Evans and Chris Godwin misplaced half a step?
Beyond his struggles on the sector, essentially the most achieved participant in NFL historical past lives with incessant buzzing concerning the stretch of preseason he missed, his gaunt look in images, the tabloid headlines concerning his marriage to supermodel Gisele Bündchen and his resolution to attend the marriage of Patriots proprietor Bob Kraft two nights earlier than a recreation this season.
He’s making an attempt to unravel soccer issues whereas present in a zone of scrutiny reserved for under essentially the most well-known individuals on this planet.
Will we see him play in opposition to the Ravens after Thursday evening? He retired briefly earlier this 12 months, taking time to inform Jackson “You’re next” in a torch-passing Instagram put up. “From a Hall of Fame quarterback — like I said, the G.O.A.T — of course, it means a lot,” Jackson stated.
The NFL Network reported that Brady is anticipated to retire after this season. He has already stretched the probabilities of a soccer lifespan. What do the Ravens see as they put together for one more dance with this determine who has stood of their manner and, for the youthful gamers, animated their desires? Do they sense weak point?
“It’s Tom Brady,” Harbaugh stated, reducing by all of the fluff. “It’s the same style, the same basic kind of an offense that he’s run over the years. It will be a big challenge for us.”
Week 8
Ravens at Buccaneers
Thursday, 8:15 p.m.
TV: Ch. 2 Stream: Amazon Prime
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
Line: Ravens by 1 1/2
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Source: www.bostonherald.com