NFL: Ravens Defense Best This Year, Not Ever

Some quick thoughts recapping the week that was while wondering whatever happened to Lamar Hoyt, Floyd Bannister and Danny Collins...

• The Baltimore Ravens clearly deserved to win the Super Bowl instead of the New York Giants. Its defense is clearly one of the best in history. But it's not the best.

I'll stick with the 1985 Bears. Other than one game, its lone loss to Miami, teams didn't score more than 10 points against it. Teams feared the Bears defense and there was no way to play against it. This year, the Ravens gave up 36 points to the Jaguars in one game early on and should have given up more than that to the Jets in the last game of the regular season.

By the way, nice of Most Valuable Parolee — whoops — Most Valuable Player Ray Lewis to declare his true feeling after the game. Lewis said he was going "to hug my kids to death." Of course, when the interview transcript was passed out, the NFL decided to censor "to death."

How easy it must be to just wipe the whole episode of just over a year ago away. A little bit of white out, a Super Bowl trophy, and nobody is supposed to wonder what happened that night in Atlanta, even though the double murder still has no one accountable for it.

• Even those who do not like tennis, who do not follow the sport, who do not understand it, couldn't have watched Jennifer Capriati win the Australian Open on Saturday and not smile.

Capriati was supposed to win Grand Slams a long time ago, more than just one in fact. Australia was the place were she suffered some of the worst losses in her career. Everyone remembers the 1991 U.S. Open semifinal against Monica Seles, but it was the next Grand Slam, in Australia, where her intial meltdown began.

So this was a rebirth in many ways. This was a chance for Capriati, who has put her troubles behind her and moved on with life, to fulfill the potential and talent she has always had. She came back in the quarterfinals against Seles, came back when she shouldn't have. She whipped Lindsey Davenport in the semifinals, then Martina Hingis in the finals.

Even Davenport and Hingis, after the matches, were smiling. Because they were happy for Capriati. The teen phenom has grown up and slipping. She's become a confident, self-assured person and player. Now with this win, you can only wonder what could come next. One thing is for sure: it certainly didn't look like a flash in the pan.

• While speaking of tennis, kudos to Patrick McEnroe for picking a U.S. Davis Cup team that is well assembled and interchangeable, let alone a team without his older brother.

John McEnroe may think that he can play Davis Cup doubles, but his younger brother has realized the challenge that older bro could never conceive: mix the old with the new. Todd Martin is a Cup stalwart and Jan-Michael Gambill has started in the last year to show flashes of his talent, not just his abs.

For doubles, Justin Gimelstob is a good pick, although he is famous for getting so intense that he cramps up, which will be a concern at Switzerland. Andy Roddick, the world junior champion last year, has already started winning on the Challenger circuit and will be on the big tour in a short time. He's already practiced with the team and will be a good pick for doubles with Gimelstob.

• The Oklahoma State men's basketball team, and the rest of college basketball, was stunned by the plane crash that took the life of ten people, including two players. How the Cowboys react will be seen in the coming weeks. No matter what, they won't be criticized for either coming together and playing strong, or coming together and playing bad. A loss on the court could never be as bad as what they have already lost this season.

• Every year, the debate centers more on what NBA players were left on from the All-Star Game rather than who was named. But overall, there are just a few debates. Players like John Stockton, Reggie Miller and Steve Francis have played well, to be sure, but have they been better than Michael Finley, Glenn Robinson and Gary Payton? In each case, no.

• For somebody so reputedly smart when it comes to business, Michael Jordan's made some strange decisions since his playing retirement. His web site with John Elway and Wayne Gretzky, MVP.com, is going down in flames with the best and brightest of dot.com's. And his GM role with the Wizards is under persistent criticism, as it should be in the case of somebody who runs a bad team but doesn't even show up a quarter of the time they play home games.

• He's not a machine. Tiger Woods will lose golf tournaments. There will be times where he gets outplayed. People don't seem to understand it, but they should deal with it.

Ask any golfer why they can play good one day and bad the next, they'll mention the golfing gods. Granted, Woods has been remarkably more consistent than most other golfers, but that doesn't mean he can keep up each time somebody like Mark Calcavecchia goes on a record-setting pace, like he did last weekend in Phoenix.

Woods will win a large number of golf tournaments in his career, a number so big that not many people could possibly predict it. But there will be large number that he loses as well. It's all in the hands of the golfing gods.