Lamar Jackson and the Ravens proved Mike Florio very wrong.
Florio, who founded Pro Football Talk, said the 49ers would “kick the s–t out of” the Ravens in their Christmas Day matchup Monday night, which many tabbed as a possible Super Bowl matchup.
“They’re going to kick the s–t out of everybody they face,” Florio said. “The quest is for second place. That’s it. As long as [key] people stay healthy. They’re currently healthy. The 49ers [will] kick the s–t out of the Ravens on Monday night.
“I’m sorry. I know that’s disrespectful for the Ravens, but let’s be realistic. At home, they got to fly across the country on Christmas night and the 49ers are waiting and the 49ers are going to dismantle the Ravens. If it’s a Super Bowl preview, the Super Bowl’s going to suck because the 49ers, as long as those guys are healthy, they’re going to run over everyone.”
But the Ravens dominated the entire night, wining 33-19 to improve to 12-3 on the season, while the 49ers fell to 11-4.
Jackson did not appreciate the manner in which Florio made his prediction and fired back after the game, which the Ravens themselves posted on X.
“You can’t just discredit us,” Jackson said. “We grown men, we got to feed our families. He can have his opinion but just don’t be talking like that. That’s disrespectful. That’s very disrespectful. Not to take away from the 49ers at all, like they’re great all across the board, but we gone come to play as well. Our record not no fluke. We play ball and we showed that.
“But he needs to keep doing his job and just don’t come off like that towards us. That’s disrespectful, like I said, cause he isn’t putting the pads on. If he were putting the pads on I feel he would’ve meant different for him. He wouldn’t say that. He would be respectful. I say that we are respectful to our opponents. Our opponents are respectful to us. But the guy we’re not even playing against just come out being disrespectful to us. I guess he wanted more views on his little channel. We’re going to leave it at that.”
Other Ravens sounded off as well.
“Everybody writing us off before we even got a chance to play,” Patrick Queen said. “We know what we’re capable of. Everybody counted us out. Didn’t expect us to even hold up. Everybody was saying we were going to get blown out by double digits or whatever. We just had to come out and play our style of ball. We all understood the assignment. Understood what coach wanted from us. [We] just went out there and capitalized.”
Roquan Smith took to Instagram after the game, posting a clip from the Ravens’ official account of Florio’s comments before another post of UFC legend Connor McGregor famously shouting “who the f–k is that guy?”
Florio apologized after Jackson’s comments.
“Lamar is right,” Florio posted on X. “I apologize for how I phrased my opinion. I believed the 49ers were dramatically better than every other team in the NFL: Cowboys, Eagles, Chiefs, Dolphins, everyone. The Ravens proved otherwise. They deserve complete and total respect for what they accomplished.”