While some professional athletes choose to ignore the outside noise from pundits and critics, others use it as a little extra motivation.
That's exactly what Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens did Monday night for their Christmas clash against the 49ers at Levi's Stadium.
Ahead of the matchup between the AFC and NFC's current No. 1 playoff seeds -- which some dubbed a Super Bowl preview -- Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio strongly predicted the 49ers would come out on top.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
"[The 49ers] kick the s--t out of everybody they face," Florio said last week. "The 49ers kick the s--t out of the Ravens on Monday night. I'm sorry, I know that's disrespectful to the Ravens, but let's be realistic. They're going to fly across the country on Christmas night, and the 49ers are waiting. The 49ers are going to dismantle the Ravens.
"If it's a Super Bowl preview, the Super Bowl is going to suck."
Florio was right about one thing: If Monday's game had been the Super Bowl, it would have sucked -- but not for the Ravens, who dominated Brock Purdy and the 49ers on San Francisco's home field.
San Francisco 49ers
Jackson directly addressed Florio's comments after the Ravens' 33-19 stomping of the 49ers.
"We're in the NFL, we play ball" Jackson told reporters at Levi's Stadium. "Not to take away from that team, but you can't just discredit us. We're grown men, we got to feed our family.
"He can have his opinion, but just talking like that is disrespectful. It's very disrespectful. Not to take away from the 49ers because they're great all across the board, but we're going to come to play as well. Our record is not no fluke. We play ball.
"He needs to keep doing his job, but don't come off like that toward us. He ain't putting the pads on. If he was putting the pads on, I feel like it would be different for me. He wouldn't say that. He would be respectful. I say that to say this; we’re respectful to our opponents. Our opponents are respectful to us, but a guy who’s not even playing against us [and] just coming out and being disrespectful, I guess he wanted more views on his little channel. We’re going to leave it at that.”
The Ravens and Jackson also trolled Florio on X, formerly known as Twitter, after the win.
Florio later apologized for his passionate comments and admitted he was wrong.
The Ravens made it clear they didn't see themselves as underdogs against the 49ers, and Baltimore coach John Harbaugh said he was proud of how his team handled the situation.
“I think our guys work hard," Harbaugh said. "Our guys work hard, and they compete hard, and everybody wants to be respected. But there’s one way to be respected, and that’s to go out there and earn that. As an athlete and as a football player, especially, it needs to be done on the field in the game. I’m proud of our guys for the way they did that tonight.”
Several other Ravens players weighed in on Florio's (and other doubters') comments.
“That was funny to me," defensive end Jadeveon Clowney said. "We were the underdogs knowing what we’ve been through, 11-3. It felt good to be the underdogs for the first time in a long time. I think that put a little chip on our shoulders. We were coming in here to do our job and play hard and physical and play together, and we did that today.”
Cornerback Marlon Humphrey hinted the Florio clip was mentioned in a team meeting.
“The interviewer guy, whatever he does, that was [mentioned] in our team meeting, so it was impossible to not hear that one for us," Humphrey said. "I just felt, it seems like … this is the NFL. Anybody can beat anybody, so for there to be so much favoritism toward the 49ers, it was a little surprising.
"Like I said earlier, I’m OK with being the underdog, but 5.5 [points] is kind of a lot. I would have been OK with 2.5 [or] 3, but we did take that a little personal, so we tried to even the score.”
Linebacker Patrick Queen admitted that all the criticism and doubt lit a fuse for the Ravens entering the game.
“Yes. Everybody was writing us off before we even had a chance to play," Queen said. "We knew what we were capable of, and everybody counted us out. [They] didn’t expect us to even hold up. Everybody was saying we were going to get blown out by double digits or whatever, so we just had to come out and play our style of ball.
"We all understood the assignment. We all understood what Coach wanted from us, and we just went out there and capitalized.”
Now it's safe to say that few people will doubt the Ravens again.
Download and follow the 49ers Talk Podcast