Five Words of Advice From Ray Lewis Inspired John Mulaney to Fight For His TV Dreams

Stephen Douglas | Apr 10, 2025

Ray Lewis celebrates winning Super Bowl XLVII. / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Everybody's Live with John Mulaney is a new twist on the traditional late-night talk show, which airs every Wednesday night on Netflix. During Mulaney's monologue on the latest episode he told a story about how Ray Lewis once basically inspired him to keep fighting for his dreams.

In 2012 Mulaney was working on a Madden NFL ad campaign called "Madden Forever," starring Paul Rudd and the then-Baltimore Ravens linebacker.

Mulaney had left Saturday Night Live earlier that year only to have NBC pass on his sitcom so he was feeling down during the commercial shoot. Lewis noticed him looking depressed between shots and decided to give him some advice. That simple advice was, "You must win your crowd."

And that's the headline. So if that's all you wanted to know, you can leave now, but if you want to laugh really hard about Ray Lewis judging teammates' breakfast choices and hear Mulaney talk about his failed sitcom then this is the entire nine-minute video for you.

For a little more context, here's one of the Madden NFL 13 commercials starring Lewis and Rudd.

Lewis's inspiring message was about winning the Super Bowl against the New York Giants in January 2001. These commercials were made before the 2012 season which would eventually end with Ray Lewis winning his second Super Bowl with the Ravens. He retired after the season.

The first episode of Mulaney aired on FOX on Sunday, October 5, 2014, opposite a New England Patriots blowout win over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday Night Football. The final episode aired on February 15, 2015, two weeks after the Patriots beat the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX. Both those football games aired on the network that originally passed on Mulaney.

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