Joe Flacco Couldn't Understand A Damn Thing Ray Lewis Said

Nice little profile in of Joe Flacco, the defending Super Bowl MVP who can't get any respect. We'll have more on Flacco, but let's pull out one quote that's getting all the attention.

Flacco recalls the time he turned down an invitiation from Cam Cameron to give an inspirational pregame speech, à la Ray Lewis.

"That's not me," Flacco says. "I love Ray, and I love how he always spoke from the heart, but if you listened to those speeches, a lot of them didn't even make sense. He meant everything he was saying, but I didn't know what he was talking about 90 percent of the time."

The emperor has no clarity! He's right. Check out this speech from last year to fire up Stanford before their NIT semifinal, as transcribed by For The Win:

Let me tell you something, if tomorrow wasn’t promised, what would you give for today? Forget everything else. Forget everything else. Forget that there was any sunlight left. What would you spend today thinking about? Yourself? Or the man that’s beside you. Or the man that you know you’d give everything in your heart for? We get one opportunity at life. One chance at life to do whatever you gonna do. To lay your foundation and make whatever mark you’re going to make. Whatever legacy you gonna leave. Leave your legacy! And it’s found through effort. Wins and losses come a dime a dozen. But effort? Nobody can judge effort ’cause effort is between you and you. Effort ain’t got nothin’ to do with anybody else. So that team that think they ready to see you? They think what they’ve seen on film? They ain’t shown what film shows. Because every day is a new day. Every moment is a new moment. So now you’ve got to go out and show them that I’m a different creature NOW than I was five minutes ago. Because I’m pissed off for greatness. Because if you ain’t pissed off for greatness, that mean you okay with being mediocre. Ain’t no man in here okay with being just basic. So let’s do what we do. Tonight, we ain’t got to worry ’bout taking no breaks.

Just word salad spilled all over the locker room. But because many fans have an irrational disdain for him, and an unhealthy love for Lewis, some folks aren't happy with Flacco's innocuous, humorous, and truthful little quip.

Poor Joe. One day he'll be out of the shadow of the Ravens defense. (No he won't.)