You serious, Clark? (USATSI)

Former Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis is no longer playing football so he doesn't have to worry about giving Patriots quarterback Tom Brady bulletin board material by saying the Tuck Rule is "the only reason we know who Tom Brady is."

But since Lewis is now a football analyst, saying that is kind of ridiculous.

He said it, though!

Appearing on the radio with ESPN colleague Stephen A. Smith, via CBS Boston, Lewis went on this bizarre, nonsensical rant about Brady, Brady's fame and the Tuck Rule:

“Listen, not to go all totally out of conscious, but just think about this, Stephen A., honest to God,” Lewis said. “When we — the first time we created something called a tuck rule, it’s the only reason we know — I’m just being honest! — the only reason we know who Tom Brady is, because of a tuck rule! There’s no such thing as a tuck rule! If the ball is in your hand, and I knock it out your hand, whether it’s going backwards, forwards, lateral, sideways, however it’s coming out, that’s a freaking fumble!

“But guess what we created? We created a freaking tuck rule!”

If you're literally shaking your head and making a "seriously, man?" face at your computer screen, you're not alone. THIS IS CRAZY TALK.

We know about Brady because of the Tuck Rule ... but really more because he went on to, you know, win the Super Bowl afterward.  Part of Lewis' argument is that Brady wouldn't have won the Super Bowl if he didn't get the Tuck Rule going his way and then his "legacy" wouldn't have begun.

“They don’t go to that championship game — they don’t go to that championship game if that tuck rule, if that ball is not called a tuck! That’s a fumble!” Lewis said. “Charles Woodson made that man clearly fumble the ball and they named it the tuck rule, something that we’ve never heard in today’s game. So now you’ve got to ask yourself: When did the legacy really start?”

Of course, Lewis' line of thinking doesn't exactly include the other two Super Bowl titles Tom Brady won. Or the fact that Brady went a long while before losing a playoff game. Or the fact that Brady is 60 minutes away from another Super Bowl appearance -- with two losses to the Giants in the past decade already -- this season.

Bottom line is this rant is more ridiculous than trying to explain the size of momentum.