Big time shout out to Baltimore Ravens 3rd-round pick, Defensive Tackle Brandon Williams for making his dream come true.
Williams took a job while still in college at Missouri Southern cleaning portable toilets to help earn money for his single-mother so that she could make ends meet.
“Sometimes, you got a little poop on you,” Williams told Aaron Wilson of the Baltimore Sun during the Ravens’ recent rookie minicamp. “Every time I was doing that, I said to myself, ‘I gotta work harder, I’m not doing this the rest of my life.’ It motivated me to get better.”
Williams also says that he pretended the outhouses were actually opposing Offensive Lineman when he would lift them up onto the truck to get hauled off.
“I acted like I was playing football. I just made it fun.”
Proof that you can go from the very bottom, all the way to the top if you’re willing to work hard and get dirty. (Photo via Yahoo!)
I have nothing to add to this, except good for him.
The worst part about having the 32nd pick this year is spending the evening worrying that the Ravens were going to take Manti Te’o. (Ok fine, I spent it monitoring the draft online while watching Scandal. Olivia Pope > Roger Goodell, all day every day. I love football, but the NFL draft is actually not compelling television.)
I’m happy about the Ravens’ pick solely because Matt Elam is not Manti Te’o. Other than, I have no strong feelings one way or the other.
It’s hard for me to get too invested in the draft, just like I have to force myself to care about college football recruiting. Just because a dude is a star at one level, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be a star at the next. I’ll care when I have something concrete to care about but until then, it’s all a crapshoot, like me typing out this blog post on my phone. We just don’t know what’s going to happen.
If I had to guess, I’d assume Elam will be pretty good. Perhaps not great, but hopefully worthy of sliding into the first round. I’ll get excited about him when he shows us something to be excited about, on the field, in the regular season.
For now, Te’o’s not a Raven so Draft Day One = success. (And ok, #inozziewetrust and all, and maybe Te’o is considered a steal later, but can we just not? Please??)
I strongly dislike the angry Oriole bird logo, but that was essentially the expression on my face when I got the text reading: “The Orioles say they explored compromise with Ravens, but are not changing Sept. 5 game vs White Sox. Ravens likely to open on road.”
Eff. That.
The Orioles have one good season in a dozen years of trying and think they can pull this crap? It’s b.s. (which, when you think about it, is pretty much all we’ve been able to expect from this organization over the last decade).
They got to the playoffs. Huge, considering they’ve barely been worth mentioning past the All-Star break recently, but the Ravens won the freakin Super Bowl. For the second time since the O’s have done much of anything.
It was fun having two really good teams in Baltimore, and it was fun to see players from the Ravens and Orioles supporting each other during their playoff runs, wearing the other team’s caps, etc., etc. but this is infuriating and I hope the rest of Baltimore sports fans are equally pissed off about it — and make their feelings known. The Super Bowl-winning Ravens are most likely opening the season away because the Orioles and MLB won’t play nice — and Baltimore fans are the ones that lose.
Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti offered to reimburse the O’s for lost revenue for moving the game, but honestly, how many people who are fans of both teams are going to go to the game if the Ravens opener is on a tv somewhere? The O’s would probably be better off compromising and not playing a game in direct competition with a Ravens game, even if it’s away.
Why are the Orioles being so stubborn on this? Because they can.*
This is why Baltimore can’t have nice things. Or two winning teams.
Happy Friday, Ravens Fans!
*This isn’t ALL the O’s fault. MLB and the players’ association and the White Sox would also have to buy in, but let’s be for real. If the rest of the world wants Baltimore fans to stop acting like they’re getting a bum deal, they have to stop getting a bum deal. Period. The end.
Still not that sad to see Ellerbe go (Miami overpaid, I think) but I’ll miss Q, Kruger (see below), and Pollard. I get that Ellerbe was a bigger priority for the team - gee, that worked well - but the others were personal faves. Especially Kruger.
Moving on. Probably not moving up, because Super Bowl is pretty much the top. Just moving on.
Sidenote: Is @Crushboy31 not the perfect Twitter handle for Bernard Pollard??
“Now, Baltimore Ravens: It’s 2008. gonna sell you a quarterback for $120 million, more money than any qb in NFL history! You’re going to go to the playoffs every single year for his first 5 years in the league…and win at least one game each time. You’re going to win the division twice; you’re going to sweep your 8 home games and the AFC North for the first time ever during one of those seasons; you’re going to finally beat the colts in the playoffs; you’re going to finally beat peyton manning in the playoffs; you’re going to finally beat tom brady in the playoffs; you’re going to go to 3 AFC Championships in those 5 years (and he’ll play well enough to win two of them); he’ll lead game-winning drives IN PITTSBURGH at Heinz Field two seasons in a row; he’ll lead you to your best start in franchise history of 9-2 while the defense falls apart b/c of injuries; he’ll be a super bowl MVP while throwing 11 TDs & 0 INTs in that playoff run; he’ll be arguably the best deep-ball thrower in the league… … .but occasionally he’ll be inconsistent with his completion percentage. Do you want him or not?”
“I don’t know, how does his bum look in football pants, and does that $120 mil include gift wrapping and delivery?”
“Hell YES, please and thank you!”
In all seriousness, the above points are ones I have been making for a few seasons now when people - Ravens fans and otherwise - have criticized Bmore’s QB.
Is he elite? A) I’m over this dumb debate. Who. Freakin. Cares. B) Depends on who you ask but C) if a Super Bowl MVP who is the highest-paid player in NFL history and the first to reach the playoffs in each of his first five seasons is not elite, then we seriously, seriously need to retire this conversation because it is irrelevant.
Haters still gon’ hate but I don’t really care if he’s “elite” as long as he keeps winning for us.
I have a dear friend who said he’d rather have his team exit the playoffs in the first round than be in the Super Bowl with Joe Flacco as his team’s QB.
Glad that worked out for ya and we both got what we wanted. By the way, doesn’t my Super Bowl Champions sweatshirt look cute? Goes really well with the “Joe the Quarterback” tee I’ve been rocking since ‘09.
The Ravens ran the same defense, and after seeing what they did in the Super Bowl, it’s good to know that we’re running something like that.
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USC nose tackle Antwuan Woods on the Trojans’ new defensive scheme for 2013
As a fan of both the Ravens and USC, this makes me a little nervous. Sure, we won the Super Bowl, but the defense overall this season (and the last few years, really) hasn’t quite lived up to its dominant reputation the way I’d like.
I guarantee that if I was nearing the end of my football career and had been toying with the idea of retiring for a couple years, and then my team won the Super Bowl, I’d be out, too.
Glad he was able to stick around long enough to get the ring and retire as a winner.
Ray Lewis performs his pregame dance one final time.
I have video of Ray’s dance from the Ravens’ last home game, in the playoffs against the Colts, but I no longer have Ray’s final dance at M&T. And yes, I’m 1000% okay with that.
