No Miracle Tonight

Wow. I couldn’t wait until tomorrow. I’ve been slipping in and out of consciousness for the past hour, so let’s see how incoherent this post can be. I’m sure tomorrow we’ll hear on every sports show, “Did the Pats win it, or did the Ravens lose it?” Normally the Pats ALWAYS win it, but tonight the Ravens gave it away. They had the ball twice in the last 5 minutes and had two three and outs, no pun intended. Then they call time out on 4th and one, when they had Brady stopped. The Ravens committed way too many penalties, especially on the final drive. As Mike Tirico pointed out, on such a windy night, kick returns have been crucial to field position. The returners had been lining up at the 15 on most of the kicks. With those unnecessary personal foul calls Gostkowski was able to kick off from Baltimore’s 35. And it ended up costing the Ravens a shot at history, as we saw they got stuffed at the one yard line to end the game.
The pats didn’t play a terribly great game, but they’ve shown us over the years, they do what they need to, to win games. The only concern I have going into the Steelers game next week (4:15 on CBS) is the run defense. The pats let Willis McGahee run wild, on a night when they new Baltimore’s only chance to win would be on the ground. And as I mentioned at the half, Kyle Boller is who we thought he was. He threw a horribel interception that would have put the Ravens up by two scores. I don’t know what he was thinking, there was not a single Purple uniform near the ball.
You gotta give props…
Brady just said in his press conference that he would have gotten that first down if the Ravens hadn’t called timeout because “he heard the whistle blow”. And he’s funny.
anyways, DAP to the Ravens D; they sacked Brady three times, the most of anyone this year. Not counting the first drive of the game, Baltimore was able to confuse and contain the big three receivers. The Ravens seem to be stuck in a rut. Their offense is finally starting to come around, but the defense continues to get older. They’ve got some major decisions to make in the offseason.

–J.J. Mad