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Earlier this year, ESPN announced they had hired Ray Lewis to help with their NFL coverage. Apparently the initiation of Ray requires he spout off some nonsense in a First Take sort of manner. And in fact, I'm shocked this was not revealed on First Take given the crap that show spews.
It seems, Ray Lewis does not believe the blackout during Super Bowl XLVII was an accident. Ray said this during the NFL Films' "America's Game" of the Ravens 2012 season. Here is what Ray had to say on the matter:
"I'm not gonna accuse nobody of nothing - because I don't know facts," says Lewis. "But you're a zillion-dollar company, and your lights go out? No. (Laughs) No way.
"Now listen, if you grew up like I grew up - and you grew up in a household like I grew up - then sometimes your lights might go out, because times get hard. I understand that. But you cannot tell me somebody wasn't sitting there and when they say, 'The Ravens (are) about to blow them out. Man, we better do something.' ... That's a huge shift in any game, in all seriousness. And as you see how huge it was because it let them right back in the game."
I think my favorite part is Ray saying he's not going to "accuse nobody of nothing - because I don't know facts", and then proceeds to throw out broad accusations. That's up there with saying, "Nothing personal, but ...." and then proceeding to make a personal attack on somebody. And I'm guessing he didn't like that when people were accusing him of certain actions following a certain Super Bowl (personally, I don't think he killed anybody, but I do think he knows what went down....but I'm not gonna accuse nobody of nothing).
There is no doubt in my mind the 49ers benefited to some extent from the blackout. After all, they were on the ropes big time, and it did give them some time to regroup. And the blackout did do some incredible ratings. So I suppose it should not surprise me that somebody would make the leap to conspiracy theory. But coming from the most high profile player on the winning team? I suppose when you win, you can say what you want.
Thankfully, Jed York had some fun with the accusation.
@ProFootballTalk there is no conspiracy. I pulled the plug
— Jed York (@JedYork) September 1, 2013