It’s not just current Ravens who are rolling their eyes at Ray Lewis’ pontificating.
Former teammates who have also transitioned into the say-things-in-exchange-for-money phase of their careers also find him to be a bit of a gasbag.
Former Ravens defensive end Trevor Pryce, who now works for FOX Sports, said Lewis went too far suggesting the leadership void (i.e. the lack of him) contributed to Jacoby Jones reportedly getting cracked over the head with a bottle swung by a stripper named Sweet Pea.
“Here’s the thing about the Ray Lewis leadership thing, when you start telling the media that things would be fixed if you were there, that can be a little self-serving,” Pryce told Aaron Wilson of the Baltimore Sun. “Once you read the narrative about yourself, that’s the narrative you’re going to stick with. God bless him, but they asked Ray that question knowing exactly what the answer will be.”
Pryce said the only surefire way to avoid getting brained by a stripper named Sweet Pea is to not go out where strippers named Sweet Pea might be congregating, and to avoid bottles of things that might be applied to your skull, internally or externally.
And to be honest, the fact they were on a party bus means none of them were driving, which implies some degree of responsibility, in a perverse sort of way.
“Well, the only way to avoid is to not have a party at all. It was a party, and it went wrong,” Pryce said. “That’s not a question of leadership. That’s what is making the current Ravens upset about it is because they’re saying, ‘We were going to have this party regardless if Ray was here or not.’
“That’s the disconnect between what’s real and what leadership is what [and] a leadership would do. . . .To me, this doesn’t show any leadership issue. It’s just one thing that happened and people found out about it, but it doesn’t mean the Ravens are all of a sudden out of control with Ray Lewis gone. Know what I’m saying?”
Most people seem to get that, at least people not named Ray Lewis, who can’t imagine an operation that lacks a certain degree of Ray Lewis being able to reach the sublime heights of Ray Lewis-dom.