Dennis Pitta, Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl Champion Tight End

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There's a lot to listen to, so get started and download the free Odyssey app today. I'm Larry Mullins, host of the podcast, Your Weirdest Fears, the show that explores the odd things that make your heart stop. I am so scared of the Grinch.

He is bad vibes. We talk to everyone from therapists to exterminators to lizard man. I was 25 when I actually got my tongue split. I have one tattoo that covers my entire body.

Listen and subscribe on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts from. And I'm just reading this from Sammy Watkins, who is now back with the Ravens, and this is via the Washington Post. This is what Sammy Watkins said.

It's a little bit long, but it's pretty important. In this league, everybody is pretty much banged up hurt. Veteran ride out, Sammy Watkins said Wednesday in a quiet corner of Baltimore's locker room. I don't want to speak for him and his situation, whatever he's going through with the contract. I don't know what world he's in, but for me, you got a chance to do something special. We all know with Lamar Jackson out there, this team is really freaking good and special things can happen. He can, he can will this team to a Super Bowl. I don't think he's thinking about it that way, but he's got an opportunity to win a Super Bowl. I hope he hobbles back out there, put him out for the pass plays and don't run him at all.

But you never know that could be wrong. I'm being very selfish right now. Just want to win. I just want him to be out on the field. But man, what a great thing it would be to see eight touch the field this Sunday and we go out there and blow them out. But that's for Lamar and everybody else to figure out.

Hope more actually something happens. Somebody reaches out to him, whether it's a coach or somebody and he decides to play. But that's a question if he's healthy or or if he's not.

I don't know. I haven't been watching him. So that quote is now going viral. Peter Schrager just retweeted it a few moments ago, but that was said by Sammy Watkins on Wednesday. We know by now, Lamar Jackson is not going to play this weekend. Let's bring in a Super Bowl champion. Did win a ring with the Baltimore Ravens, was a longtime tight end in the league, and that's Dennis Pitta. Dennis, I appreciate the time when you hear those Sammy Watkins comments to The Washington Post about Lamar Jackson.

Just what crosses your mind? Yeah, I think they're a little bit surprising for sure. I think, you know, you'd be shocked to think that Lamar would sit this game out based on contract situation. Listen, I think based on what Lamar tweeted recently about his injury, which which I think was, you know, rare to typically, you don't see guys take the Twitter to specifically explain their injury. Coach Harbaugh has been very close to the vest about Lamar and his injury and all that and the specifics of it. There hasn't been a whole lot of information about what he's dealing with. I think Lamar wanted to clear the air and make sure people know that it's not contract related. And I think that was the intent of his tweet. And so Sammy coming out and saying that, I think it's surprising to all of us and kind of shocking that it seems like he thinks Lamar can play through it and that it is more contract related than Lamar's leading on. So I honestly don't know what to believe, Zach. I think we're all a little bit shocked from those comments and from Lamar's tweet and just kind of everything that's going on around that whole situation.

I think it's I think it's very interesting to say the least. If Lamar says he's hurt, I'm going to believe him. And I would agree with you if he could play.

I think he would play. But with that being said, and I've been saying this ever since the draft, it feels like we're on the verge, whether it's this offseason or next offseason, where Lamar Jackson gets traded and he's going to be playing somewhere else soon. Yeah, I mean, I am not sure what's going to happen with Lamar. I mean, the Ravens really hold the leverage in this situation because they have really three years of franchise tags they can use on him without having to give him a long term contract.

Now, I don't think that's what either side wants to do. Just given the cap hit that they would have to endure through those franchise tags. Obviously, Lamar wants long term security. I think he loves Baltimore. Everybody I've talked to thinks really highly of Lamar and the organization and thinks he's their future. And by all accounts, Lamar wants to be there. And so it would, to be completely honest, shock me if he got traded. But you never know in this league.

I mean, strange things happen. I think they'll find a way to ensure that he's there for the long term. You know, Lamar is just such a special player. Sammy Watkins is right in the respect that they're a different team with Lamar at the helm.

And they want to be able to go on. The defense is playing tremendous right now. They feel like they can go on a postseason run if they can just get Lamar back in action and generate some offense.

I mean, they haven't really generated much offense the last handful of weeks with his absence. And if Lamar's back in there, you like your chances. But the way Lamar plays and the style of his game, you have to be 100% healthy. If he doesn't feel like his knee's stable enough to play the way that he wants to play, I mean, he's not going to be very effective. So I'm like you, I believe Lamar and the fact that if he's not healthy, you know, I believe it's at his word. And I don't think he would have any real reason to mislead everybody in that respect.

Now, I know Sammy Watkins was there last year, but this year he just joined the team a little while ago. Is this him you think speaking for how a lot of guys feel in the locker room, but they just won't say it? Or is this just you got to take it as one person's comments and only one person's comment? Yeah, I think that's what the interesting part of it is. You know, guys in the locker room typically have a pretty good handle on, you know, everyone's kind of injury status and all that.

When they're thinking they're going to be back, how they're feeling. I mean, the locker room in the Ravens facility is right next door to the training room. And so you don't have to go very far to see the guys that are rehabbing, injured, and getting treatment and all that.

And you pass right through that room every time you go to and from meetings. And so I'm sure there's plenty of interaction between Lamar and his teammates, and I'm sure they're all keenly aware of his situation. So I think it does surprise me. Again, I just think it's surprising that this whole Sammy Watkin comment, because I just think, you know, if he was healthy enough to play, I think Lamar would be the first one to make sure he was playing. And so especially given the playoff game, we were talking the regular season. I mean, this is a different conversation, but, you know, Lamar early in his career struggled in the playoffs.

And that was kind of the knock on him for the first couple of years that he couldn't win a playoff game, and they finally got over that hump. Lamar just wants to win. He wants to win playoff games. He wants to win a Super Bowl. And so I would imagine if he could be out there, he would.

But again, that's why these comments are surprising. Dennis Pitta here with us. Looking back at your team's run, when you guys won that Super Bowl back in 2012, all these years later, just what are the memories that still stand out about that run and what that group was able to do? Yeah, it was a special postseason. I mean, we had some ups and highs and lows during the regular season. We started off really well. We went through a three-game skid.

Our offensive coordinator got fired with two weeks left in the regular season, and Jim Caldwell took over. And so there was a lot of ups and downs in that regular season. But we got into the postseason, and things started to really click. And I think I was just on the radio the other day talking about the mile-high miracle in Denver when we traveled to play Peyton and the Broncos and the way that game ended, going into overtime and just the craziness. And listen, I think any good postseason run, you have to get a little bit lucky at times, and the ball has to bounce your way at times. And it certainly did in that game for Jacoby Jones to be able to get behind the Broncos secondary and score with like 30 seconds left in regulation and no timeouts.

I mean, it was an unbelievable finish. That game certainly stands out in my mind. It was also one of the coldest games I've ever played in. I think it was one of the coldest postseason or December-January games that's ever been played in Denver, as some statistic I saw. So that was a memorable one. And then we went to New England, a place that we lost the year previous in the AFC Championship game on a missed field goal.

And so there was a bad taste in our mouth from the previous year. And so we went back, same circumstances in New England, AFC Championship game, and we got it done. We were able to go on to the Super Bowl and get it done against the 49ers there. So many memorable games in that postseason run, and what an incredible run it was for our team. Two things off the Super Bowl.

I'll ask you this one first, and then I'll follow up. What do you remember about the blackout after the Beyoncé halftime show? And what did you do to make sure that you were right when the game did resume and obviously the game did change in a big way, where it looked like it was going to be a blowout and then became a good one right after that blackout?

Yeah, it was something like we've never experienced before. The Super Bowl's always a little bit different because, like you mentioned, Beyoncé's doing the halftime show. It's always these big halftime shows. In a normal NFL game, you're in and out of the locker room at halftime in about 10 minutes. But it's so long at the Super Bowl. Yeah, and at the Super Bowl, it's like a 30-minute halftime. So you're sitting around, you make all your adjustments from the first half, and then you've got a lot of time to kind of have your own devices, your own thoughts, and talking with teammates and all that stuff.

It's almost like you're just hanging out in there waiting for the show to be over, and then you can go resume. So we had a long halftime. We go back out. We return the opening kickoff. Jacoby Jones returns the opening kickoff.

We go up 28 to 6. And so our offense still didn't take the field. We obviously got the ball at halftime. We didn't take the field because of the return. And then they have the ball, and the lights go out. And so now for 45 extra minutes, we're sitting there on the field waiting for the lights to come back on. Why it took that long on the field, I don't know.

Do you buy that it's a conspiracy theory? I know some of your teammates, I think it was Ray Lewis, thought that they pulled the plug to try to make it a game. Listen, that game was getting out of hand quickly for the 49ers. We had a ton of momentum going into halftime. Like I mentioned, we return the opening kick after halftime.

We're up 28-6. And I think at that point, we had them in like third and long, right before the lights go out. It's like a Buffalo Wild Wings commercial. Yeah, it was crazy. I mean, you can throw out all kinds of theories. I mean, I'd be hard-pressed to believe a lot of them, but for whatever reason, you know, whether it was Beyonce's performance at halftime or whatever reason, we overloaded the circuit board and the lights go out. And so it's just, I've never played in any football game at any level where the lights went out and we had to sit around for 45 minutes, much less the biggest game of the entire year.

And so it was unusual for sure. But to my point, so we go in for an extended halftime. We return the opening kick. Our offense did not see the field for like two consecutive hours from the end of halftime until we finally resumed play again when the lights came back on.

And so that was difficult for us to imagine. Clearly, the 49ers did a better job during that blackout of staying ready and being ready to go. Because as soon as we got back to play, I mean, I think we turned the ball over a couple times and they regained all that momentum and made it a game.

And so they handled it much better than we did. But that was tough when you're not on the field. I mean, that's a long time to not be on the field and have to try to get going again, especially when we had as much momentum as we did. Dennis Pitta, I want you to be honest with me here, because you can't be afraid of Harbaugh. John can't cut you anymore. Just wondering, what was he actually like leading up to that Super Bowl, going up against his brother, you being inside the locker room? You know, to John's credit, and I'm being honest here, he didn't really change. You know, he was the same Coach Harbaugh that we knew all season.

And, you know, guys in big moments, in critical situations, a lot of times they change, they get tighter, they get, you know, put a little pressure on them and they start to overreact to things and all these kind of things. You would not have known that we were playing in the Super Bowl and the Harbaugh Bowl against his brother versus any other game with his demeanor and everything that he did. And we approached that game the same as we did every other game. And I think that's what helped us.

I mean, the Super Bowl is so different to begin with and the hoopla and all the hype that surrounds that game and all the media and everything you have to do leading up to it is crazy. But we kept our routine and everything as similar as possible as we did the entire season. And I think that helped us come out and play our best because we were a hot football team during that postseason run. And, you know, we were a confident group at that point. And we knew we just had to kind of stick to our routine and keep playing our game.

And we were going to be all right. When we get to the game coming up on Sunday, I just don't see without Lamar in the field how the Bengals could win the game. I mean, how the Ravens could win the game.

I know the Bengals' offensive line on the right side. Their starters are not going to be able to go, so there could be some extra pressure on Joe Burrow. Can you see a path to a Ravens road to victory if it is Huntley or Brown, depending on who gets the go for them? Yeah, I think you feel a lot better as a Ravens fan if Huntley's under center, for sure. He's done a lot of good things over the last couple of years in Lamar's absence. And I think you have a lot more confidence in him being able to create plays with both his arm and his leg a lot like Lamar does. He's got a very similar style to Lamar. And so the offense doesn't change much when Huntley's in there. Now, he's not Lamar Jackson, we all know.

But, you know, he's done some really good things for them. I think in this game, you know, I think anybody betting on this game is going to go heavy onto the Bengals simply because Lamar Jackson's not out there. But I think the Ravens can muddy up this game. I mean, their defense has played great. Ever since the addition of Roquan Smith, they have really taken their defensive play to a whole other level. And if they can get to Burrow, get pressure on him and just make life difficult for him and keep the points down, you've got a chance. I mean, you've got, you know, healthy running backs finally.

And if you can kind of muddy the waters and stick to the run game and not get down by too much where you can stay in your game plan and run the football throughout that game, you know, you have to like your chances. Dennis Pitta, always appreciate the conversation. Thank you so much for the time. All right, Zach. Thanks, man.

Appreciate it. Wherever you get your podcasts from. I'm Larry Mullins, host of the podcast, Your Weirdest Fears, the show that explores the odd things that make your heart stop. I am so scared of the Grinch.

He is bad vibe. We talk to everyone from therapists to exterminators to lizard man. I was twenty five when I actually got my tongue split.

I have one tattoo that covers my entire body. Listen and subscribe on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts from. And add shows to your queue to catch up later. There's a lot to listen to. So get started and download the free Odyssey app today.