Baltimore Ravens all pro middle linebacker is a throw back to the good old days.
Lewis could have played linebacker in any era with the same destruction.
The future Hall Of Famer is not feeling the NFL’s measures to make the game safer.
Pro Football Talk is reporting that Lewis expressed his views to Bob Glauber of Newsday recently.
“The league is meddling too much with the way players play the game of football, and that it’s time for the league office to just allow football players to do their jobs.”
“I think the safest thing to do is leave the game alone.”
“The game will take care of itself. It always has. Should we be aware of these things? Absolutely. But when you adjust so many [rules], sometimes it makes it worse.”
“I don’t think it’s the place for someone that’s not on the field to fine somebody,” he said. “You can’t jump in my brain and tell me my intention. The game is so fast. Last year, they fined me for hitting [Steelers receiver] Hines Ward. I’m lunging at him already, and then he ducks to avoid me. You can’t fine me for that. Those are the things that I think we have to be careful not to manage the game so much, to the point where you start damaging guys’ careers. Players might start turning their heads the wrong way, start going for more knees. Let the game take care of itself.”
“If you’re talking about a repeat offender, then you deal with that person, but don’t make everybody suffer, because everybody else doesn’t play like that. You don’t play to injure anybody. It’s a brotherhood. Let the brotherhood take care of itself. I would never want to hurt anybody. I don’t play dirty. I play the game pissed off, but I don’t play the game dirty.”
Ray Lewis may go down as the best that ever did it at his position.
He needs to understand that the game of football he played at Miami, and for 16 years in the NFL is no more.