Ed Reed looks back on the Raven's 2012 season, leading up to Super Bowl XLVII in his hometown of New Orleans. Reed describes the emotions he was feeling throughout the game, and describes what exactly happened when the lights went out.
Ed is 100% correct. Someone cut the power. That game was on pace to be the fastest/shortest Super Bowl of ALL TIME. The NFL sat there knowing they had a set amount of air time they had already sold for millions of dollars a commercial spot and DEFINITELY weren't going to be able to fit all of those ads in. Plus the precedent it would set for future Super Bowls. A corporation isn't going to spend millions of dollars on a Super Bowl commercial if there is ANY possibility it will end up not being shown. It would have drastically reduced the "value" of those time slots. The NFL is a business first and foremost, they wont let anything get between them and maximizing profits.
The NFL does not get paid from the commercials directly. The TV network does. The NFL was already paid by the network with the deals they made previously. If you think the NFL thought a blow out would hurt commercial ad sales then why this SB vs all of the previous blowout boring games. At the least, people would want to stay and see the brothers hug after the game. It was a relay that triggered the open circuit because it was set too low months before the game. There were concerns back in October whether the power system was up to snuff (this was only a few years after Katrina) so they invested in new equipment. But this type of equipment is not plug an play. It is not like installing a 20 amp breaker in your home (where there are standards that guide installation). Engineers have to make educated guesses as to what the worse case scenarios are. The company that made the device claims it worked as designed. They blamed the installers for using too low of an overload setting.
We love you, Ed Reed! TRUST IT. That's exactly the motto our '23 team should have. If they just trust themselves, they can beat anybody! GO RAVENS! 💜🐦⬛
Reed had freedom to do things in the secondary that no one else had. Coaches use to tell DBs drafted by the Ravens that if they even thought of trying half the things that Reed tried in the secondary, they would be fired. Haruki Nakamura is one DB who tells that story.
Following Ed from his days at the University of Miami and how he and Ray Lewis shaped the entire culture of the Baltimore Ravens, it would have been a cosmic tragedy had he retired without a Super Bowl ring.
I love every the player. You can't say he's not one of the top safeties of all time. That being said, seeingg some of his attitude now towards his coaching staff and his other teammates it's kind of not what I expected out of a person people call "humble". That's why they say never meet your Heroes
Loved Ed Reed as a player, but never heard him speak until now. Absolutely captivating. And I always forget that he was not on that 2000 Ravens team that won. He deserved that ring as much as anyone who's ever played.
