National Football League

Ray Lewis is a conspiracy theorist?

Published Aug. 31, 2013 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

Making sense has never been the strength of Ray Lewis’ oration game, but now the retired Baltimore Ravens linebacker is careening past motivational nonsense and into the realm of the conspiracy theory.

Remember when the lights went out during Super Bowl XLVII? Lewis says that was no accident.

"I'm not gonna accuse nobody of nothing — because I don't know facts," Lewis says on an upcoming installment of NFL Films’ "America’s Game" series. "But you're a zillion-dollar company, and your lights go out? No. (Laughs) No way.

"Now listen, if you grew up like I grew up — and you grew up in a household like I grew up — then sometimes your lights might go out, because times get hard. I understand that. But you cannot tell me somebody wasn't sitting there and when they say, 'The Ravens (are) about to blow them out. Man, we better do something.' . . . That's a huge shift in any game, in all seriousness. And as you see how huge it was because it let them right back in the game."

As with all conspiracy theories, the attendant circumstances did seem to fall into a convenient narrative. At the time of the blackout, the Ravens were beating the San Francisco 49ers by 22 points. Somebody or something needed to stop the Ravens’ momentum or the big game was going to be a big dud. So then, boom, the lights go out and guess what? The 49ers got back in it. All the way back.

Baltimore won 34-31, and Lewis got his second Super Bowl ring. At this point, though, what he could really use is a Zapruder film.