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Rex Ryan has been talking. Antonio Cromartie has been talking.
For the most part, the Ravens have been quiet.
Until today.
Ray Lewis went off on Ryan, the Jets, and the hype surrounding the Ravens' Monday night opponent today, letting loose on a four-minute rant.
"The bottom line is - and I'm going to be very careful with this - we're talking about the Jets like we're talking about the Saints," Lewis said. "That's the Super Bowl champs. Until they play tonight, that's the only people that can be dethroned - Drew Brees and the Saints, not Mark Sanchez and the Jets.
"All of this 'We're the Miami Heat of football.' If you're the Miami Heat, we got to be the Lakers. We're aiming for multiple rings. But you listen to all this yap, yap, yap, the bottom line is you got to buckle up your chin straps."
What set Lewis off was a clip from last night's episode of HBO's "Hard Knocks", in which Ryan allowed Sanchez, his young quarterback, to put on a headset during the Jets' final preseason game and call the offensive plays from the sideline.
Ryan told Sanchez that he allowed Lewis and Ed Reed to call plays during a preseason game while he was the defensive coordinator in Baltimore. According to Ryan, Lewis and Reed "tapped out" after a few plays.
"Rex can say what he wants to say," Lewis said. "The thing that Rex said, I don't want to get into it because I didn't see it. But when you talk about what I can't do, we're talking about a decade of stuff I've done. We're not talking about whether I didn't want to call one defense or not. Coach Mark Sanchez. Coach your Jets. My name should not come out Rex's mouth unless you're telling somebody to come block me, which is going to be a very hard damn task come Monday night.
"So, whatever he feels that they want to say and all of these Jets want to talk, man, you've still got to play the game. The game ain't played through tongues. The game is played when you buckle up your chin strap. So, all this pressure he wants to put on his team, I hope they can cash the check that he writes."
Lewis was asked if he'll be carrying some of this talk over onto the field on Monday night.
"I will be barking. I'm not sure I'm going to listen to too much of it," Lewis said. "That's the beauty of my job. I get to do the barking and I get to do the hitting. I'm not the receiver of any of that."
The 10-time Pro Bowler capped off his rant with one final shot at the Jets and his former coordinator.
"They watched the Super Bowl from the same place I watched the Super Bowl from - your couch," he said. "You can't talk about whether you're ready to do something until you win a championship. That's just a fact."
Here's the audio of the rant:
Audio: Ray Lewis calls out Rex Ryan and the Jets
