Ray Lewis Narrowly Avoids Elimination, Lamar Odom Dances Salsa on DWTS

The second week of Dancing with the Stars' 28th season began with Ray Lewis giving one of his signature pregame speeches.

The former Baltimore Raven spoke in elongated, impassioned sentences—as he's known to do—and told his fellow competitors that they win or lose as a team. When actress Kate Flannery reminded Lewis they were indeed not a team, he changed his tune: "Then it's on because I ain't going home, so good luck to the rest of you."

Lewis just narrowly escaped going home, though.

The show combined the three judges' votes with America's vote at the end of Monday's episode, which landed Lewis and his partner Cheryl Burke in the bottom two alongside Supremes legend Mary Wilson and her partner Brandon Armstrong. The judges chose to save Lewis, which made Wilson the season's first dancer sent home.

Before the season's first elimination, Lewis danced the traditional ballroom fox trot to "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire, while Lamar Odom took on the salsa to Daddy Yankee's "Con Calma":

In rehearsals, Lewis struggled to be light on his feet—something that did not hinder him in his Hall of Fame NFL career. Burke took him to an iFly Indoor Skydiving facility to help, but it didn't work. Carrie Ann Inaba lamented "tons of mistakes," and Len Goodman called the Super Bowl XXXV MVP "flatfooted."

The judges felt Lewis' personality was carrying him through the competition to this point, and it must have been enough to warrant a save over Wilson. Lewis tallied a score of 15 out of 30 total points for his fox trot, the same score he received last week.

Odom, meanwhile, opened up about what could be causing him trouble in the competition. The former NBA player was last in the field after last week's season premiere with 11 points. He cited short-term memory loss stemming from a nearly fatal overdose at a Nevada brothel in 2015 when Peta Murgatroyd, Odom's partner, mentioned he was struggling to remember steps in her choreography.

"When I was in a coma, I had 12 strokes and six heart attacks," the two-time NBA champion said on the ABC broadcast. "The only problems that I still have are memory loss."

While the judges noted how Odom had improved from his 11-point score last week, he managed to notch only 12 out of 30 possible points. Regardless, voters at home wanted to see him continue.

Elsewhere, in something of a home game for the former Bachelorette, Hannah Brown earned the highest score of the night at 24 for her Viennese waltz to Taylor Swift's "Lover."

The show returns next Monday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.