No NFL player should know more about crime than Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis.
Lewis, after all, was once indicted for murder and aggravated assault following the stabbing death of two men at the close of a Super Bowl XXXIV party in Atlanta on Jan. 31, 2000.
His defenders will rightly argue that the charges were later dropped in exchange for his testimony against the other two men charged in the crime, but he was fined $250,000 by the NFL for his role in the murders and later settled with the victims’ families to avoid a civil suit.
He also later admitted to misleading the police on the morning following the stabbings and the white suit he was reportedly wearing on the night of the murders was never found.
So with that as a backdrop, perhaps we should pay some attention to Lewis’s interview with ESPN this past weekend, the one where he tells the network’s Sal Paolantonio: “Do this research if we don’t have a [NFL] season – watch how much evil – which we call crime – watch how much crime picks up if you take away our game.”