Tough couple of weeks for Ray Lewis.
His presence at the AFC Championship Game couldn’t prevent Lamar Jackson choking away a Super Bowl appearance. Now, he pops up again as the defensive coordinator for Peyton Manning’s AFC flag football team at the Pro Bowl games, where a hot mic catches a casual alleged homophobic slur.
We’re rolling with the “gay as hell” transcription from this Clark Kent-eared account who posted the video of Lewis being incensed about a penalty call, but I think he might’ve said “sh*t” instead of “hell.” Either way, not a great look, No. 52…
If there’s a “crying with laughter” emoji happening here, it’s in response to Lewis fancying himself as such a faith-based, upstanding citizen when he still has “gay” in his vernacular to voice a simple disagreement about something. Yeah, Ray. Keep thumping the Good Book, buddy.
Pobody’s nerfect and all that, but I thought society was past this. Guess Ray Lewis ain’t.
My Bengals fandom is bleeding over into this post. Let me check that real quick. Forgive me for questioning Ray Lewis’ character but the guy just screams “inauthentic” to me and always has. At the end of the day, Lewis will probably serve up some sort of half-baked apology, and maybe even get praised in the end for his competitiveness.
Too bad the Ravens could only manage 10 points in their last game. You’d have thought for sure Ray Lewis would be the X-factor to push them over the top against the Chiefs. OOPS.
Maybe Ray can just chill out next time. It’s flag football. In the Pro Bowl. The most unserious environment you could possibly imagine for NFL players. A preseason game is the Super Bowl compared to this. Realizing that he was mic’d up now, I get that Lewis can’t resist any chance to be the center of attention.
Perhaps Lewis can get a chance at redemption as a coordinator and prove himself a non-homophobe — I’m saying that mostly in jest, chill out — if he’s part of the mix when the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles features flag football. Then again, Team USA is probably going to run so many laps around the competition that Lewis won’t even have that much to get fired up about.
I really hope those plans for flag football at the ’28 Summer Games stick, though. The comedic content potential is limitless.
