Ray Lewis: 'You cannot tell me' Super Bowl blackout was an accident

Ray Lewis celebrated a Super Bowl win, but he isn't convinced that the blackout was an accident. [Ezra Shaw/Getty Images] The Baltimore Ravens led by 22 when

Ray Lewis celebrated a Super Bowl win, but he isn't convinced that the blackout was an accident. [Ezra Shaw/Getty Images]

The Baltimore Ravens led by 22 when the lights went out in the Superdome during Super Bowl XLVII. Ray Lewis is convinced that bizarre occurrence was far from a coincidence.

On the Ravens' "America's Game" documentary, Lewis hinted without much subtlety that the power outage may have been a ploy to help the 49ers regroup.

"I'm not gonna accuse nobody of nothing -- because I don't know facts," Lewis said, according to USA Today. "But you're a zillion-dollar company, and your lights go out? No. No way.

"You cannot tell me somebody wasn't sitting there and when they say, 'The Ravens [are] about to blow them out. Man, we better do something.' ... That's a huge shift in any game, in all seriousness. And as you see how huge it was because it let them right back in the game."

The outage occurred early in the third quarter, shortly after Jacoby Jones's 108-yard kickoff return gave Baltimore a 28-6 lead, delaying the game for 34 minutes. San Francisco then scored 17 unanswered points once the contest resumed and eventually pulled within 31-29 in the fourth quarter. The 49ers also had a chance to take a lead in the waning seconds of the game, only to fall five yards shy of the end zone.

The blackout was an unprecedented moment in Super Bowl history. As the Superdome staff scrambled to correct the issue, which was later blamed on an "abnormality in the [electrical] system that services the stadium, most of the players took a seat on the field or sideline. They were given a few moments to stretch out again as the lights slowly came back on around the Superdome, before the game resumed.