Ravens' simple solidarity will produce Super Bowl crown 
Updated 3:51 PM ET January 27, 2001 

Prisco: Payton will lead Giants to victory
TAMPA, Fla. -- Ironic that a Baltimore Ravens team with one of the largest collective egos in Super Bowl history, and a coach who until three months ago would sooner eat dirt than rely on the running game, could elevate the concept of small ball to near-art form status. 

But the Ravens advanced to Super Bowl XXXV with a formula that, while anathema to all of the computer models generated by Brian Billick, nearly belies their image. The masters of the short field, the Ravens play a run-punt-defense style that by its very nature dictates a close outcome. So adept has Baltimore become with a minimalist approach that the Ravens are about to ride it to maximum reward in Sunday evening's championship game. 


This is a team that carries a big stick and wins softly. Mostly it is a club that enjoys the simplicity and back-to-basics nature of a good, old-fashioned rumble. It is a team of semi-civilized thugs in which the various members of the gang look out for one another. 

"There are a lot of powerful personalities in our locker room," said tight end Shannon Sharpe, a man who ranks near the top of the ego totem pole. "But come game time, we have a unique way of kind of subjugating those things for the common good. It really is a team effort for us. This is a team that knows how to put all the outside (stuff) behind it and focus on one thing. It's a process we've become very good at handling." 

Indeed, the Ravens win, and will again by less than a touchdown over the Giants on Sunday, because they cover each other's backs in the tough spots and know they can rely on each other when the game moves to its denouement. What might have been a distraction for many teams, the Ray Lewis affair instead became a galvanizing event for Ravens players. 

By taking on the role of lightning rod, Lewis has energized his teammates, and without question they rally around him. Make no mistake about this: Although it is taboo enough to have escaped media scrutiny this week, there is an undeniable racial overtone to the Ravens' suggestions Lewis has been unfairly retried the past seven days in the court of public opinion. 

But even while that's the case, the Ravens' unity cuts through racial lines, and has culminated in a powerful and single-minded football organism. 

In the end, which is about when Super Bowl XXXV figures to be decided, it is that rare sense of sacrificing for the common good which will lift the Ravens ever so slightly over an opponent that is eerily similar in terms of both talent and demeanor. Legitimate or not, and we tend to believe it is a contrived bit of psychology on the part of Baltimore's cadre of master motivators, the Ravens truly believe they are the unappreciated and unloved underdogs. 

They not only welcome a role they helped to create, but embrace it as well, use it to stoke flames of passion and resolve in their locker room. There is, as a result, a chip the size of Gibraltar on the shoulders of the Ravens. And while there is sincere regard for the Giants, they are not a team that can easily dislodge the incredible hubris with which Baltimore will enter the title game. 

"They've done a tremendous job of portraying themselves as the team everyone hates," said New York middle linebacker Michael Barrow earlier this week. "No matter what anyone says or writes about them, they play that whole 'disrespected' thing to the hilt. It's become their thing. They like the 'us against the world' deal because it plays right into their mindset." 

In a game that figures to be as closely played as Super Bowl XXXV, the edge in, well, edginess, might be Baltimore's most notable advantage. This is a matchup of throwbacks in strategy. But when it comes to temperament, few teams can take a punch and mount a counterattack with the well-practiced skill of the Ravens. Look for them to come out trash-talking from the outset, ready to take prisoners immediately and ask questions later. 

The Ravens will win Super Bowl XXXV, not so much because they are a decidedly superior team -- since they really are not -- but because they own the slightly discernable edge in tough-minded resolve. And they will win because they have mastered the ability to make small ball their biggest on-field ally. 

In a week filled with numbers, this most telling statistic: The average scoring drive for Baltimore in 2000 was just 43.8 yards, the lowest in the NFL. The Ravens had 64 offensive scores, counting field goals and touchdowns, and 18 of them came on marches of 25 yards or less. Nine of them were on possessions of 10 yards or less. 

What they do better than any other team in the league is compress the field and turn field position into a holy grail. They force the opposition offense into a three-and-out series in their own end, grab field position beyond their own 40-yard line and then start the vise-grip process of playing the short-field game. Sooner or later, the Ravens opponents crack from playing so much of the game on their side of the 50-yard line. 

"The entire first quarter (of the AFC Championship Game)," said Oakland middle linebacker Greg Biekert, "their offense was in our end and our offense was in our end, too. It might not seem like much, but subtly the momentum shifts, and then they make one or two key plays and that's it." 

It is a script the Ravens have fine-tuned and one they will follow precisely to a win on Sunday. 

Pasquarelli