It was about imposing your will on somebody else. That is the play that symbolizes what people felt like the rivalry was about.
We understand what playing football is about. It was like, hey man, what’s up? I’m good, how are you? Want a drink? That’s pretty much how it goes. And after that, I was just happy we had won the game. KEISEL: That’s the hardest hit I have ever seen, and I told Ryan that when it happened.ĬLARK: I just remember getting up and walking off the field and asking, did we get the ball? That was pretty much all I was concerned with. The aftermath of the Ryan Clark/Willis McGahee hit, January 2009. Don’t get to the point of attack and blink, go through him and finish the play. There is a saying in football, don’t blink. When I saw Willis come out, I said, you know what, I am going to start running at him, and I am not going to stop until I hit him. But I wanted to give him the look like I was in half-field coverage. I was in quarters coverage, which means my quarter of the field extends from the hash to the numbers. Willis McGahee moves to the left side of Joe Flacco, so I tried to give him the same look that San Diego had, hoping they ran the same play. The week before, the San Diego Charges ran the same play against us in kind of the same situation, the two-minute drill, and Darren Sproles runs kind of a short post route up the middle, catches the ball and splits Troy and me. Ryan Clark lays out Willis McGahee, AFC Championship Game, January 2009.ĬLARK: The next thing that happened after Troy’s interception was me hitting Willis McGahee. These guys are going to be our rivals, because they are in our division, and this is sort of what we aspired to be. But about four or five years later, Baltimore got it. In those first few years, the Steelers just came in and owned Memorial Stadium. The Baltimore Colts in their heyday didn’t overlap with the Steelers in their heyday. The Steelers-Baltimore Colts rivalry was not a good one at all. But I don’t think anybody in the city of Baltimore got that this was supposed to be our rival.
STAN “THE FAN” CHARLES, Baltimore sports talk radio host, 1983-2001: When the Browns moved to Baltimore, for the Modell family, Steelers week was a big deal right away. So we wound up having to get the Steelers PR guy to bring us down to the ref. The Pittsburgh writers requested a pool report from the referee.
That was sewn into the fabric of the Ravens.ĮD BOUCHETTE, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Steelers beat writer, 1985- : I remember one time, this was at the old Memorial Stadium, so they had just moved not too long ago. Not necessarily for the city, but Art Modell and Ozzie Newsome, their history, coming from Cleveland. But there is a little bit of a carryover. Or Ravens-Cleveland, because Art Modell moved the team from Cleveland.īRIAN BILLICK, Ravens head coach 1999-2007: The Ravens history is so brief, relatively speaking. There is more history, I think, with Cleveland and Cincinnati. The weird thing is, I don’t really know where it started. That football hate-it runs deep in both cities. But in the AFC North there is only one rivalry, and that’s Baltimore-Pittsburgh. PRYCE: I came to Baltimore from Denver, where our big rival was the Raiders or the Chiefs. A GIFT FOR FOOTBALL PURISTS: Andy Benoit previews the Steelers-Ravens Christmas Day matchup ORIGINS, 1996-2000.Just another Raven battle wound, I guess. And then afterward, I looked, and it was completely plastered to my face. He got my nose, and I remember everyone saying it wasn’t that bad. ROETHLISBERGER: It wasn’t a good situation.