RAY’S YOUR HANDS: Ray Lewis salutes the crowd packing the Baltimore streets at yesterday’s Ravens victory parade. (REUTERS)
Ray Lewis rode off into the sunset with a Super Bowl win, but in the last game of his “last ride,” former teammate Trevor Pryce thinks that the future Hall of Famer was just along for the ride.
In a radio interview with Jim Rome, Pryce said he thought that Lewis was too caught up in the moment and his play suffered in one of the biggest games of his career.
“I think he played with a case of the nerves. I think he had the yips. I really do,” said Pryce, a defensive tackle who played more than four seasons with Lewis before finishing his career with the Jets in 2010.
“He had it bad,” Pryce said. “He didn’t look like himself, even his new self. Forget his old self, that guy’s gone, that guy’s named Patrick Willis.
“But even the guy he was last week, he wasn’t that guy. He had a case of it bad, badly. It was almost like he was just hoping, ‘Let’s get this over with.’ ”
Lewis led all players with 51 postseason tackles, but he had just seven in the 34-31 Super Bowl win and was routinely beaten by 49ers tight end Vernon Davis in coverage.
“Half of his playoff check should go to [linebacker] Dannell Ellerbe for making that last play on that last fade route,” Pryce said. “The other half to Greg Roman, the 49ers offensive coordinator.”