Looking at the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens, you can find plenty of connections between the two teams. The most obvious, which will be beat to death by Feb. 3, is that Jim Harbaugh and John Harbaugh are brothers. If you didn't know that, well congratulations on learning something new today.
Super Bowl 2013: Ray Lewis sacked Jim Harbaugh for 1st career sack
Wouldn’t you know it, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis notched his first career sack against current San Francisco 49ers coach and former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Jim Harbaugh, way back in 1996.
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Slightly less known is the fact that Jim Harbaugh and Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis were teammates on the 1998 Ravens team. Albert Breer of the NFL Network took to Twitter and sent out a team photo from that team, where Lewis and Harbaugh can clearly be seen.
via i.imgur.com via Albert Breer
But there’s one other connection that you may not know of. It was brought up on Tuesday here, but was also noted by Harbaugh in a press conference a couple weeks back: Lewis notched his first career sack against Harbaugh back on Oct. 13, 1996.
Harbaugh was the quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts that day, and Lewis managed one of Baltimore's four sacks in the game. It's kind of fitting, given that Lewis could be playing his last NFL game before calling it a career and hanging up the cleats for good.
When asked about the sack, Harbaugh noted that he’d just heard that he was Lewis’ first career sack, and laughed about it, saying “My legend grows.” He said that he doesn’t remember the sack, however.
Alternatively, he does remember the sack, and is going to use the Super Bowl as his ultimate revenge on Lewis, who kicked off a legendary, Hall of Fame-bound career with that one sack. Or maybe Harbaugh really doesn’t remember it, or the fact that the Colts actually went on to win that game.
Still, it’s one more connection to make this game just a little bit more interesting. Any storyline helps the two-week wait.
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