The Baltimore Ravens accomplished a lot on Saturday. The team sealed a second straight AFC North crown, Lamar Jackson added to his numbers in the MVP race and Derrick Henry further inserted himself in the NFL record books.
But the brightest glory belonged to nose tackle Michael Pierce. All 355 pounds of him.
With the Ravens and Cleveland Browns playing out the clock in a lopsided Baltimore win, the Ravens defense had Pierce fake a rush then drop back into coverage on 2nd-and-6. That by itself would have been fun, but then Pierce jumped a route of running back Jacob Kibodi and picked off the pass from quarterback Bailey Zappe.
Pierce had plenty of running room ahead of him, but opted to slide and confirm the turnover. He was soon swarmed by nearly the entire Ravens team. The Ravens coaches up in the booth had a similar reaction, while offensive coordinator Todd Monken was simply stunned.
Usually, a big man like Pierce getting an interception requires some sort of deflected pass at the line of scrimmage. You almost never see a nose tackle like Pierce anywhere but in the middle of the defensive line. But for some reason, the Ravens threw him out there and he played like a true linebacker.
Per Jonas Shaffer of the Baltimore Banner, Pierce is the heaviest NFL player to record an interception since at least 2000.
Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said after the game that the effort earned Pierce a game ball, calling the pick “the most crazy, amazing play in NFL history.”
Pierce also confirmed it was the first interception of his entire football career, then provided an insight into what was going through his mind on the field:
“I’m going to be honest. I don’t want to curse on TV, but it was ‘Oh, s-word. Oh my god, he really threw this football.'”
Pierce is in his eighth NFL season, having started it with the Ravens as an undrafted free agent out of Samford. He became an important piece of the Baltimore defense as a run clogger, left for the Minnesota Vikings in 2020, then returned to the Ravens in 2022. Like many players his size, he has struggled with injuries in the past.
Nose tackles rarely get the spotlight or the stats — Pierce has 9.5 sacks in his entire career — but Pierce has always been an important player. And sometimes, you get a chance to show that big men can catch too.