When the Baltimore Ravens notched what was essentially a game-winning interception in the fourth quarter of the wild-card game against the Tennessee Titans, they promptly celebrated on the Titans’ logo at midfield.
This was supposed to be payback for the Titans meeting on the Ravens’ logo in Week 11, which Ravens players and head coach John Harbaugh thought was disrespectful.
In fact, Baltimore thought it was so disrespectful that they ran off the field after the final play of Sunday’s game and didn’t shake hands with Tennessee.
There was only one problem with the Ravens feeling disrespected: meeting midfield at the logo is something the Titans have done for years and it was never intended to be disrespect.
And that’s something linebacker Will Compton and left tackle Taylor Lewan reiterated recently on their podcast, “Bussin’ With The Boys” (you can view the clip of them talking about it here, but warning: language is NSFW).
“We break it down every game in the middle of the field,” Compton said.
“This is going back to when you guys played the Ravens this year. Even going farther… going into the divisional game, we did the same thing against the Ravens last year… For like the last five years, that’s how its always been done,” Lewan explained.
“They had bulletin board material all week long, so when they made that play and he did that, tou-(expletive)-che, that’s a good chirp back for what you thought we were doing to you,” Compton said. “Cause then after the game was over, they were all sprinting to the locker room, trying to grab their teammates to not dap up or shake hands, or nothing…”
“Ya know what? Listen, the Ravens are not winning the Super Bowl,” Compton predicted. “So, I’ll get to put Jordan crying faces on them chirping us on the logo on all of the players that did that and drop it when they lose.”
Since the Week 11 pregame spat, I’ve written on multiple occasions that the Ravens shouldn’t have taken the Titans congregating on their logo as disrespect because it’s something they have always done.
Clearly the Ravens never got the memo that this pregame ritual isn’t specific to them and took it way more personally than they ever should have.
Whatever the case may be, clearly that misunderstanding was a source of motivation, and in the end Baltimore had the last laugh, even though Tennessee was never laughing in the first place.
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