Wow, what a night. What a game. My heart was pounding for most of the night. Bobby and I hosted the party for this one, and we had a great time. Pictures below the jump!
( Super Bowl Champs!!! )
( Super Bowl Champs!!! )
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The Ravens are Super Bowl champs! Wow, what a game ... I think I lost at least a month off my life but neither Kapaernik nor injuries nor a 35-minute power outage could keep us down!
Pictures and details to follow tomorrow--the trophy's being presented now. So excited! :D
ETA: Go O's! :D
ETA2: Joe Flacco's the game MVP. Maybe now people will take him seriously??
Pictures and details to follow tomorrow--the trophy's being presented now. So excited! :D
ETA: Go O's! :D
ETA2: Joe Flacco's the game MVP. Maybe now people will take him seriously??
Well, it's official! The Ravens are off to their second Super Bowl, against the San Francisco 49ers, in two weeks!
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Last night, they solidly beat the Patriots in Foxborough, 28-13, to win the AFC Championship. This was much-needed after last year's should've-been-a-victory, same team, same place. Baltimore is going wild! Here is Federal Hill last night, after the Ravens won.
This playoffs preceded much like 2000's championship season did. ( Football Rambling Not Likely to Be Interesting to Most People )
We watched the game over my inlaws' house. Even my dad watched it! :^O We brought the Goldens but won't make that mistake again; Lancelot, a.k.a. Phil, has become afraid of loud cheering and spent most of the evening trying to climb into various people's laps. He's small for a Golden, but 68 lbs. is still too heavy for a lap dog. My Ray Lewis jersey is worn beyond recognition, so I wore my McNair jersey. (I had a moment of stupid superstition of the kind oft-practiced during football viewing if it was poor luck to wear the jersey of a dead player, but I adored McNair when he played for the Titans, adored him even more when he played for us, and so scolded myself for silliness and wore it anyway. Ghost!Steve, it seems, did bring us luck. Having been folded in a drawer for years now [I actually lost it for a while], ghost!Steve will definitely be getting some mileage in the weeks to come.) Every time we scored a touchdown, I did Steve's touchdown ... whatever that is.
Luckily, I had lots of occasions to do that!
If I know Bal'more from 2000, the next few weeks will be wild. Strings of purple lights, purple spotlights, and Ravens car flags have already made their appearance. We saw our first Ravens tent in Hanover on Saturday; in 2000, a big deal was made because just about every gas station had a Ravens tent selling unauthorized merchandise on the corner. This is of course an extra huge occasion since Ray Lewis has the chance to make his last game a Super Bowl victory. What could be a better retirement gift for someone who has done so much for this city? Go Ravens!
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Last night, they solidly beat the Patriots in Foxborough, 28-13, to win the AFC Championship. This was much-needed after last year's should've-been-a-victory, same team, same place. Baltimore is going wild! Here is Federal Hill last night, after the Ravens won.
This playoffs preceded much like 2000's championship season did. ( Football Rambling Not Likely to Be Interesting to Most People )
We watched the game over my inlaws' house. Even my dad watched it! :^O We brought the Goldens but won't make that mistake again; Lancelot, a.k.a. Phil, has become afraid of loud cheering and spent most of the evening trying to climb into various people's laps. He's small for a Golden, but 68 lbs. is still too heavy for a lap dog. My Ray Lewis jersey is worn beyond recognition, so I wore my McNair jersey. (I had a moment of stupid superstition of the kind oft-practiced during football viewing if it was poor luck to wear the jersey of a dead player, but I adored McNair when he played for the Titans, adored him even more when he played for us, and so scolded myself for silliness and wore it anyway. Ghost!Steve, it seems, did bring us luck. Having been folded in a drawer for years now [I actually lost it for a while], ghost!Steve will definitely be getting some mileage in the weeks to come.) Every time we scored a touchdown, I did Steve's touchdown ... whatever that is.
Luckily, I had lots of occasions to do that!
If I know Bal'more from 2000, the next few weeks will be wild. Strings of purple lights, purple spotlights, and Ravens car flags have already made their appearance. We saw our first Ravens tent in Hanover on Saturday; in 2000, a big deal was made because just about every gas station had a Ravens tent selling unauthorized merchandise on the corner. This is of course an extra huge occasion since Ray Lewis has the chance to make his last game a Super Bowl victory. What could be a better retirement gift for someone who has done so much for this city? Go Ravens!
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The Ravens went into today's playoff game against Denver, in Denver, as severe underdogs. No one but the Bal'more diehard thought they had a snowball's chance. Well, after a nail-biter of a game that involved four tied scores and went into a second overtime session, the Ravens won with a field goal in said second overtime, 38-35. WOOHOO! That was one of the best games I've ever watched.
And it's Ray Lewis's retirement year; Ray Lewis who came to us as a rookie in the Ravens' very first season and who has been such a symbol of strength and success not only for the Ravens but for all of Baltimore. Even if we don't win next week, that's a helluva last season. But I think they may want it enough this year. We might just be headed back to the Festivus Maximus!
And it's Ray Lewis's retirement year; Ray Lewis who came to us as a rookie in the Ravens' very first season and who has been such a symbol of strength and success not only for the Ravens but for all of Baltimore. Even if we don't win next week, that's a helluva last season. But I think they may want it enough this year. We might just be headed back to the Festivus Maximus!
When the Ravens went to the Super Bowl in 2001, Tony "the Goose" Siragusa famously coined it Festivus Maximus. Well, it looks like there won't be any purple pain at this year's Festivus Maximus. The Ravens lost to the Patriots in this afternoon's AFC Championship, 20-23.
And they should have won. Among the final plays of the game were a dropped pass in the endzone and a missed 32-yard field goal attempt that would have tied the game and taken it to overtime. The Ravens outplayed the Pats (game stats here); even Joe Flacco put up better numbers than Tom Brady, which is crazy-like-whoa (although Joe also didn't have to face down the Ravens' defense). But when it counted, poor play calls were made and key plays went sour.
This really looked like a good year for us and, with our team aging, who knows when we'll get so good a chance again. If I had a beer, I'd totally be crying in it right now.
And they should have won. Among the final plays of the game were a dropped pass in the endzone and a missed 32-yard field goal attempt that would have tied the game and taken it to overtime. The Ravens outplayed the Pats (game stats here); even Joe Flacco put up better numbers than Tom Brady, which is crazy-like-whoa (although Joe also didn't have to face down the Ravens' defense). But when it counted, poor play calls were made and key plays went sour.
This really looked like a good year for us and, with our team aging, who knows when we'll get so good a chance again. If I had a beer, I'd totally be crying in it right now.
Bobby just got off the phone with my parents. During the conversation, my dad informed him that he'd been offered by his workplace ...
tickets to this past Sunday's playoff game
in the Skybox
on the 50-yard line.
And he turned them down.
He said to Bobby, "That wouldn't have interested you, would it?"
#*$#@&*$%!!!!!
No. No, Dad, no, that wouldn't have interested us at all!!!!
>:^(
Sorry, for the excessive exclamation points and general symbology but, as I just told Bobby, barring the chance that I become a famous author or one of us does something really awesome that makes us rich and famous, that might well have been the coolest game we would have ever attended.
tickets to this past Sunday's playoff game
in the Skybox
on the 50-yard line.
And he turned them down.
He said to Bobby, "That wouldn't have interested you, would it?"
#*$#@&*$%!!!!!
No. No, Dad, no, that wouldn't have interested us at all!!!!
>:^(
Sorry, for the excessive exclamation points and general symbology but, as I just told Bobby, barring the chance that I become a famous author or one of us does something really awesome that makes us rich and famous, that might well have been the coolest game we would have ever attended.
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pandemonium_213, it's on like Donkey Kong! ;)The Ravens won the Divisional Playoff this afternoon against the Houston Texans. It was not as easy of a win as Ravens' fans would have liked, but the Texans are a tough and up-and-coming team with the second best defense in the league. The Ravens took the lead early, and the Texans inched closer and closer throughout the game; it definitely kept us on the edges of our seats! The deciding factor--as is often the case, especially during playoff games--was turnovers: The Texans had four, and we had none. The Texans played a helluva game and made us look pretty stupid at times, but we capitalized on those turnovers and ended up coming away with the win, 20-13.
Since the Patriots plastered the Broncos last night, we will play them in New England next week for the AFC Championship. Everyone's now kinda shuffling their feet and pulling faces because the Patriots have won ... how many Super Bowls in recent years? I've lost count. It's a lot. But. We've beaten the Patriots the last two times we played them. We've beaten them in a playoff game in New England before. They have the second worst regular-season defense in the NFL and we have the third best (the Texans were second best; the Steelers--whom we beat twice this year--were first), and as the old saying goes: Defense wins Super Bowls. So there is reason to hope.
After the game, my f-i-l asked, "So, do you think that was an ugly win?" Well, yeah sure, I said, but we won a Super Bowl once before with a whole season of ugly wins (going five games without a touchdown at one point); this has always been how we play, and it seems to work for us, so I'm fine with "ugly" so long as I can follow it with "win."
ETA: And now the Giants have upset the Packers, so the NFC Championship will be 49ers versus Giants. If the Ravens can pull off a win next week, that means that, no matter what, the Super Bowl match-up will be an interesting one for us. If we play the 49ers, our head coach John Harbaugh will be pitted against his brother, who is the head coach of the 49ers. If we play the Giants (Gi'nts, if you want to say it with a Balmore accent ;), then we will duplicate our 2001 Super Bowl match-up ... that we won, I might add.
The Ravens played their first game tonight and inaugurated this season's Monday Night Football as well against the Jets. Bobby and I met my inlaws at the Green Turtle to have copious amounts of junk food and beer* for dinner and watch the game. It was a good game--a close game! The Ravens edged in a victory 10-9, but they looked really good. (It should have been a much higher score but for three stupid turnovers in the first half, including one on their very first offensive play.) The defense looked solid, and the offense was pulling off stuff that the Ravens--historically a defensive team--never manage. I think they converted something like 9 of 12 third downs, which they never do.
*Not me. I was the designated driver. I did indulge in the junk food, though.
I am perpetually annoyed by the NFL, and it's such a stupid thing to waste my anger on that I've stopped following football for the most part. I spent many a Sunday afternoon, once upon a time, "studying" while also watching the Ravens on television. Now, I catch part of at most two or three regular season games. But I really did have fun tonight, even if the anxiety of the last few minutes of play probably peeled ten minutes off of my life.
*Not me. I was the designated driver. I did indulge in the junk food, though.
I am perpetually annoyed by the NFL, and it's such a stupid thing to waste my anger on that I've stopped following football for the most part. I spent many a Sunday afternoon, once upon a time, "studying" while also watching the Ravens on television. Now, I catch part of at most two or three regular season games. But I really did have fun tonight, even if the anxiety of the last few minutes of play probably peeled ten minutes off of my life.
