Ray Lewis left the game of football a two-time champion after winning Super Bowl XLVII, but the now-infamous power outage that occurred in the third quarter of his second championship almost derailed the Ravens victory. Lewis says the strange occurrence was no accident.
Prior to the blackout, Baltimore was leading the 49ers 28-6. The Ravens seemed to be cruising to a sure victory, but once darkness fell at the Mercedes-Benz
Superdome, the game was delayed 34 minutes. When the power was finally restored, San Francisco stormed back from a 22-point third-quarter deficit and almost completed an improbable comeback victory.
To those watching at home, it seemed improbable, but the Ravens linebacker says the 49ers got some help staging their rally. During an interview for NFL Films’ America’s Game series, which chronicles Baltimore’s Super Bowl victory, Lewis provided a reason behind the power outage, and it turns out No. 52 dabbles in conspiracy theories.
“I’m not gonna accuse nobody of nothing — because I don’t know facts,” Lewis said, according to USA Today. “But you’re a zillion-dollar company, and your lights go out? No. No way.
“Now listen, if you grew up like I grew up — and you grew up in a household like I grew up — then sometimes your lights might go out, because times get hard. I understand that. But you cannot tell me somebody wasn’t sitting there and when they say, ‘The Ravens [are] about to blow them out. Man, we better do something.’ … That’s a huge shift in any game, in all seriousness. And as you see how huge it was because it let them right back in the game.”
While it was ultimately Entergy New Orleans, the power company that supplied electricity for the big game, that took the blame for the outage, another person has thrown his name in the ring after hearing Lewis’ thoughts on the matter.
San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York set the record straight when he sent out a humorous reply on Twitter.
[tweet https://twitter.com/JedYork/status/374162192376950784Â align=’center’%5D
The America’s Game episode will air Monday night at 9 p.m. on NFL Network.
