Ray Lewis is as fearsome and dependable as anyone in football, and that earned him his second Associated Press NFL Defensive Player of the Year award Wednesday. The Ravens’ inside linebacker and leader is Baltimore’s third player honored in 2003,
Ray Lewis is as fearsome and dependable as anyone in football, and that earned him his second Associated Press NFL Defensive Player of the Year award Wednesday.
The Ravens’ inside linebacker and leader is Baltimore’s third player honored in 2003, joining Offensive Player of the Year Jamal Lewis and Defensive Rookie of the Year Terrell Suggs.
Lewis also was the NFL’s top defender in the 2000 season, when he led a dominant defense that carried the Ravens to the Super Bowl title. He probably would have won the award in other seasons, too, had he been fully healthy, particularly last year, when Lewis missed 11 games with a shoulder injury.
said. “The only thing left is a consistent three or four more years.”
To Lewis, another Defensive Player of the Year award also should further diminish any image problems stemming from his arrest in early 2000 in a murder investigation after the Super Bowl in Atlanta. The murder charges were dropped in exchange for a guilty plea for obstruction of justice, a misdemeanor.
