Here’s a little nugget from Tom E. Curran on Spikes:

Brandon Spikes played well against the Ravens. He also did stupid things like throwing a punch during one post-play scuffle and shoving Marshal Yanda from behind after another.

I have no problem with Spikes playing like this. You need a guy on your defense with this kind of attitude. It’s only “stupid” if you get a penalty for it. Otherwise it’s just Spikes being Spikes which I think takes a lot of players out of the game.

Spikes was all over Ray Rice the entire game, and it looked to me like Rice was affected. Spikes is the exact antidote to the kind of malaise we saw so much of in 2009. I think he’s a major building block on this defense and alongside Mayo forms one of the best young inside linebacker tandems in the NFL.