Ravens-Patriots

[A-Tex Devil]

Ugh... I have no love for the Ravens, but I picked this game up in the 4th and was intrigued, found myself rooting for the Ravens for the first time in my life (I'm ambivalent about the undefeated Patriots, but something about the U guys playing for Taylor got to me).

First that 4th down defensive holding was garbage. Period.

But if I'm the Ravens defense. Man. Do I just pull a Latrell-PJ Carlesimo and pound Billick in the lockerroom after the game? Can Modell suspend the whole defense for insubordination/assault of a coach? I'd say pound Boller, but he actually had a solid game other than that bad interception, which was obviously a Billick call. Then the screen on 3rd and 1.5? Run McGahee up the middle!!

It sucks that Rex Ryan called that timeout, but Billick lost this game. How he doesn't get fired this year, I'll never know. He fell into a superbowl ring and has been coasting on it ever since.

Just saw the holding on ESPN again. They think the holding was right, but I'm still not sure. I've seen it five times. Nice sweater, Tom.

Edited to say... that hold was probably a good call. Just sucks that your coach puts you in that position.

[rockymtn devil]

I think Modell sold the team a few years ago.

As for the game, I think the holding call was legit, but there's no way the game winning TD was a catch. He's clearly bobbling the ball after he got his right foot down meaning he needed to get that foot down a second time. He didn't. Not that it mattered--the Pats would've scored anyway, and I got a another fantasy TD from Brady!

After watching the last two weeks, the Steelers do look like the perfect team to beat the Patriots. They run the ball well (and NE cannot stop the run) and they have a defense that can get pressure on Brady. If the secondary can play like it did against the Bengals last night, it could be an upset. Of course, what all that means is that the Pats win by 25...

[DUKIECB]

Yeah if the Steelers don't get them next week you can forget it. They have the Jets, Dolphins and Giants after that and they could beat those teams with their practice squad.

I think what is scariest about the Pats is that they are as lucky as they are good!

[rthomas]

Pats: How lucky can you get? The time out on 4th and 1, the false start, the holding call (correct call), the bobbled catch (I thought it was a good catch), the stupid throwing the flag into the stands call.

Ravens:How unlucky/stupid can you get? see above plus the hail mary to the 2 yard line as time runs out.

I hope my Steelers can beat them next week. Probably not. But probably the last shot for a Pats loss during the regular season.

[tombrady]

just an absurd game all around last night. I almost went to bed at half-time. Glad I didn't.

[Dukerati]

I, too, think the holding call was legit. He held him well past five yards and not only that but if you watch it on DVR, the safety hit the WR a little early also. Why are you holding the tight end on fourth down anyway?

Baltimore had a billion chances to win this game. That timeout call was horrendous and that tipped pass in the red zone! That ball was in the air for a billion seconds! (sigh).

[OZZIE4DUKE]

I started watching the game with about 5 minutes to go in the fourth quarter, when I saw that the Ravens were winning on the 11:00 news. Boy, was I rooting for them (as a big fan of the undefeated 1972/3 Miami Dolphins, as I've previously described here.)

After watching the series of breaks that the Patriots got (some self generated, some Ravens generated), I am resigned to the fact that the Patriots will go 19-0, and the Dolphins will go 0-16 this year. There is some symmetry there, and I can live with it. The Perfect Dolphins can put away their champagne this year - they are not going to need it.

[hurleyfor3]

The holding call (on fourth down late in the game) was valid -- it prevented the receiver from being in position to make the catch.

On the last play of the game, I wonder whether a flag would have been thrown had the Ravens made it into the end zone. That one Raven dude pretty much climbed over the Patriot dude to allow the other Raven dude to get into position for the catch.

I'm a Steelers fan too, but it wouldn't bother me to see the Pats win next week as long as it's not a blowout. Looking ahead to the playoffs, I doubt the Steelers can beat the Pats twice, so I'd rather lose now and win in January.

[JasonEvans]

I'm a Steelers fan too, but it wouldn't bother me to see the Pats win next week as long as it's not a blowout. Looking ahead to the playoffs, I doubt the Steelers can beat the Pats twice, so I'd rather lose now and win in January.

If you dislike the Pats, the greatest fate you can wish upon them is for them to go undefeated in the regular season and then lose in the playoffs.

--Jason "the Pats got good experience going for it on 4th down " Evans

[EarlJam]

I thought the announcers were being way to dramatic last night. Something about, "Don't you get the sense that the sand in the hourglass is sifting away for the Ravens?"

Upon hearing that, I immediately condemned all the announcers to Hell.

-EarlJam

[Bostondevil]

Upon hearing that, I immediately condemned all the announcers to Hell.

You only got around to that last night?! Welcome to the Club, EarlJam.

By the way, I thought the officials did a suberb job of calling the last 2 minutes of the game, suberb

Yes, I love the Pats. And yes, I'd love to see them go undefeated, but I'd rather see them win the Super Bowl. But the nicest thing about them going undefeated is I wouldn't have to listen to stories about the '72 Dolphins anymore. I hated them then and the whole champagne thing just seems so sad now. Brady? Moss? Bruschi? If you do repeat the feat, promise me not to engage in a similar tradition.

Anyone else think 'Duke gets all the calls' when the Ravens started terping? Sound familiar? Bueller? Bueller? (My oldest son got so nervous during the game he switched to Ferris Bueller's Day Off on cable for awhile. Sigh. I only do that during Duke games. I've failed.)

[greybeard]

Struck me that the refs took over the game in the last two minutes. Whatever happened to let the players decide. If a good call, as in technically an infraction, that holding in the end zone did not seem to me to effect the play and was a touch foul of the sort that would never be called at the end of a basketball game. Football, the sport of real men gets decided on a touch-foul that doesn't in my mind effect the play and guys in the NBA get mauled in the final seconds and it almost never gets called.

What really got me, and I know that this is the rule, was the previous fourth down play when the Ravens stopped em cold but NE got a "do over" because their guy moved a nano second too soon. I mean, how does that happen? Where does that happen? Only in wrestling where the good guy appears to have it won only to have his victory snatched away by the type of backwards logic that was at work on that play.

Who else was waiting to see the players from the U gather at mid-field after their victory and point to the sky in honor of their boy? Excuse me, I gotta go rent a sad movie; some things in this life just ain't meant to be.

[Jarhead]

A foul is a foul, and any official who ignores one for any reason, at any point in the game deserves to be hoisted up the goal posts, both of them, at the same time. By the way, on replay, that so called touch foul was a holding on an eligible receiver. You have no way of knowing if that was the principle receiver for the play called. The false start you mentioned was, plain and simple, a false start. The play is dead at that point. It was not a do over. The best officials simply miss calls, enough to please any fan, but if officials are allowed to ignore some penalty calls, you might as well play the game in a wrestling ring. The Ravens deserved to lose. They called that stupid time out during the last Patriots sequence. What were they thinking? That was worse than Chris Webber's time out.

[feldspar]

A foul is a foul, and any official who ignores one for any reason, at any point in the game deserves to be hoisted up the goal posts, both of them, at the same time. By the way, on replay, that so called touch foul was a holding on an eligible receiver. You have no way of knowing if that was the principle receiver for the play called. The false start you mentioned was, plain and simple, a false start. The play is dead at that point. It was not a do over. The best officials simply miss calls, enough to please any fan, but if officials are allowed to ignore some penalty calls, you might as well play the game in a wrestling ring. The Ravens deserved to lose. They called that stupid time out during the last Patriots sequence. What were they thinking? That was worse than Chris Webber's time out.

Excellently put. The officiating in the final four minutes was superb.

[greybeard]

A foul is a foul, and any official who ignores one for any reason, at any point in the game deserves to be hoisted up the goal posts, both of them, at the same time. By the way, on replay, that so called touch foul was a holding on an eligible receiver. You have no way of knowing if that was the principle receiver for the play called. The false start you mentioned was, plain and simple, a false start. The play is dead at that point. It was not a do over. The best officials simply miss calls, enough to please any fan, but if officials are allowed to ignore some penalty calls, you might as well play the game in a wrestling ring. The Ravens deserved to lose. They called that stupid time out during the last Patriots sequence. What were they thinking? That was worse than Chris Webber's time out.

You missed the ironical part Jarhead, which was the entire post. Just trying to copy my boy Tony K, who I'm sure, like me, was interested principally in seeing the mid field tribute to Shawn by McGehee and what's his name after the Raven's won. Me and T are such saps for that kind of stuff; good thing the game turned out the way it did, it'd have been a shame to see my guy cry on national TV.

Later.

[Jarhead]

How ironic. I was thinking how much your post sounded like one of those sports guys who are so weak on their understanding of any sport. Kornheiser has always had that kind of style to me.

[greybeard]

How ironic. I was thinking how much your post sounded like one of those sports guys who are so weak on their understanding of any sport. Kornheiser has always had that kind of style to me.

I take that as a complement. Tony has forgotten more about sports than any guy I know knows. It's just that that isn't all that interests him. Thank g-d for him that that is true of a whole lot of sports fans.

Make no mistake, he didn't get where he is without loving and deeply understanding the games that he has covered since he was, hello, 14 and started writing for the South Shore Record, not to mention the Hewlett High Bulletin.

He made "his bones" as a sports reporter writing for Newsday on Long Island where his audience took their sports real seriously (you think). Then managed to land a job covering sports for the NY Times, and then the Washington Post. Shapp thought him terrifically insightful and he is; so did George Michaels. Both brought him to TV when he was but a pup. You're probably right, he don't know jack about sports.

Sports are about stories: Arledge (spelling, ugh) didn't build an empire on the phrase "The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" by happenstance.

Anyway, why would a real sports fan give a hoot about whether NE goes undefeated, which was the only story line going into the game? Barnum and Bailey nonsense. "Yodeling," as my man T would say. Selling product.

The way I saw it and still do, the real story in that game, in fact the only story in that game, developed during the game itself. It was McGehee's extraordinary performance, and Baltimore's defensive line keeping guys off of no. 52 so he could kill people. They played inspired ball for the first time all season. McGehee seemed possessed. The other guy always does, but McGehee would not let himself be stopped, or so it seemed.

I'd like to think that all that had something to do with his boy Shawn's untimely death.

Even if it didn't, supposing that it did makes a much more interesting story line than that "NE Came Through Again, and the Refs Got it Right."

At least that was and remains the way I see it. How Tony saw it, I really don't know. Poetic license; he probably was caught up in the drama of the game; a real sports nut, you know, always has been.

He did, by the way, see the hammer falling way before anyone else and said so repeatedly. Lucky? He did the same damn thing in a game early in the season, I forget the teams. Lucky again? Perhaps, but if you ever saw him putt, you'd know differently!

[calltheobvious]

Graybeard,

We'll never agree on the officiating of the last four minutes, but we do share a tremendous amount of respect for TK. I knew some of what you posted, but you provided a lot of new detail. Thanks for the history lesson.

[greybeard]

Graybeard,

We'll never agree on the officiating of the last four minutes, but we do share a tremendous amount of respect for TK. I knew some of what you posted, but you provided a lot of new detail. Thanks for the history lesson.

I don't have an issue with the officiating down the stretch.

I tried, but failed, to paint a picture--the picture was that the way the game played out replicated for me the wrestling matches from my youth, when I was left bereft as one of my heros, Chief Big Heart was a favorite, would lose to the villian, Dr. Jerry Grahm, in a similar last minute turn of fate (I still will never forget how I felt when my sister pointed out that the matches were actually fixed, for which she would have died if she hadn't been able to squash me like a bug and deep down it hadn't clicked that she had to be right). That was supposed to lead into my a poignant note about how I was looking for the Ravens to win so I could see a fitting tribute by McGehee and 53 (blocking here) to Shawn.

I obviously fell short. Sorry for the confusion the miss created.