Tom Brady Recalls Legendary Battles With Ravens, Ray Lewis
With Tom Brady calling the Ravens-Rams game for FOX, the former quarterback reflected on the legendary battles he had with the Ravens when he was with the New England Patriots.
“A lot of meaningful games there against the Ravens,” Brady said on “Story Time With Tom” on YouTube. “That’s one of the toughest organizations our Patriots organization ever faced. We always went to Baltimore and they were a tough, hard-nosed football team, and they still are. That defense built around Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Haloti Ngata, they had so many talented players at all levels of the defense.”
Brady elaborated on his rivalry with Lewis.
“Ray was the ultimate competitor,” Brady said. “He was the quarterback of the defense at linebacker and everything ran through him. So, you just knew that there was a chess match between what he was trying to get his defense to do and what we were trying to get our offense to do. He was such a cerebral player; he read route combinations better than anybody.”
Brady also talked about trash talking Lewis but not wanting any part of a physical confrontation with the Hall of Famer.
“Once in a while, I’d get out in the open field and he’d come tracking me down,” Brady said. “Of course, if he hit me, he’d probably break me in two. So, I would try to slide pretty early, but then me, knowing I was protected by my own offensive linemen, I was ready to talk a little of my own s—. But it didn’t last too long. There was a lot of mutual respect between the two of us. We had a great rivalry over the years.
“I was definitely never going to get anywhere close to Ray. He was a tough man. I wasn’t going to pick any fights with anybody out there, but I was going to maybe instigate something and get the hell out of the way before I got my [butt] kicked.”