Derrick Mason wants to make it clear about his former team: He doesn’t care about them – at all.
“I’m four years removed from playing for the Tennessee Titans,” he said at the team’s Owings Mills training complex on Tuesday. “I enjoyed my time there, I enjoyed the coaching staff and I loved those guys, but now I am a Ravens guy and that’s all I really care about.”
But Mason will get a large dose of nostalgia on Saturday afternoon at 4:30 when the Ravens (12-5) play at LP Field in Nashville against the top-seeded Titans (13-3). The 12-year veteran spent his first eight seasons with the Titans, who drafted him out of Michigan State, evolving from a return specialist to one of the league’s elite pass catchers.
Mason has been the team’s top offensive weapon since coming to Charm City in 2005, as he has eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark three times, including catching 80 passes for 1,037 yards and five touchdowns this season.
But he’s not the only former Titan who now wears purple and black.
Cornerback Samari Rolle and fullback Lorenzo Neal also starred in Music City, and along with Mason, played for Tennessee in 2001 that the Ravens upset, 24-10, en route to winning Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa, Fla.
“We felt we were the better team,” Neal said. “[Linebacker] Ray Lewis knows I thought that. I still think that. But that’s why you play the game.”
Rolle also remembers the sting of the upset, which came a year after the trio came up three feet shy of potentially winning the Super Bowl when Kevin Dyson was tackled on the 1-yard line as time expired in a 23-16 loss to the St. Louis Rams.
“It hurt more than when we lost the Super Bowl,” Rolle said. “They outplayed us that year. But now I am glad to be on this side.”
Even Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher grew bitter when reporters asked about the loss eight years ago.
“Ask the guys that were here with us in 2001,” he said. “They will tell you how it felt in the locker room.”
Still, it’s hard to ignore the similarities to eight years ago.
The Ravens entered the game with one of the top defenses in the league — and possibly the best of all-time — and an offense based around running the ball and not committing turnovers. An interception returned for a touchdown and a blocked field goal returned for another sparked a victory in which the Ravens gained just 134 yards and finished with an NFL postseason-record low six first downs.
The players and coaches, however, are hesitant to even pay too much attention to a 13-10 loss to the Titans at M&T Bank Stadium on Oct. 5.
“It’s totally different now,” Lewis said. “You can’t look back at that. We have to prepare for this week and we know this team is playing at a very high level.”
