mayoclinic

Watched the replay of the game on NFLN. Some thoughts that come to mind:

1. I think both roughing penalties against the Ravens have to be called. Neither seemed flagrant, dirty or with intent to harm to me. In part, both were caused by the terrific speed at which the game was played. But under NFL rules, a forearm to the face/head of the QB has to be called every time. And the Suggs play was clearly at Brady's legs, the kind of play that could very easily have resulted in an injury, intentional or not. I certainly did not see any flagrant difference in the way the refs called the game between the two teams.

2. I was impressed again by the overall speed and intensity on both sides. Two very good teams. If the Ravens just shut up and played they'd be a lot better. Flacco and Rice are the real deal.

3. The Pats did a fabulous job of adjusting after Derrick Mason shredded them on the first drive.

4. D*mn Meriweather and McGowan are good. They are all over the place, with a nose for the ball, and hit like a ton of bricks. Meriweather clearly outplayed Ed Reed in that game.

5. I'm not a huge James Sanders fan and he certainly didn't shine like McGowan and Meriweather, but I really can't blame him for missing the tackle on Ray Rice. Rice was moving like a bat out of h*ll, and I don't know anyone that makes that tackle on him at that angle. Rice is a beast.

6. Butler looks like the real deal. He does not look at all like a rookie CB. Butler and Bodden will be one of the top CB tandems in the league by the end of the year at this rate. The blanket coverage and big hitting by the secondary at the end of each half was the difference in the game.

7. The DL and overall pressure looked the best it has all year.

8. Both touchdowns scored by opposing defenses against our offense so far this season came on outstanding plays by the other team. But giving up those kind of scores is devastating. Just devastating. The game almost turned around on the Suggs play.

9. The only call where we got lucky was the fake field goal. It was clearly a catch. And I can understand the refs ruling that we made the 1st down - it's a judgment call, and NFL refs have always seemed pretty liberal in where they spot the ball when an offensive player reaches out with the ball. But it was a generous spot, and could easily have gone against us.

10. No way did Willis McGahee make it on 4th and 1. His momentum was stopped, his knee was down, and then he tried to reach the ball forward to get the spot.

11. Having Brady roll out to his right on the last Pats offensive play was a bad call. He's not a good QB throwing on the run, especially not now. Dumb call. It was not a controlled throw.

12. LoMo didn't look bad to me. He was fabulous on the catch and run, and he was running hard with minimal dancing on the carries that I saw. In most cases there just weren't yards to be had against a top run defense. I actually think he could have a big game against Denver.

13. Hanson really hurt us in that game. Pinning the opponent deep could have made a huge difference, and he blew it at least twice. For a guy without a particularly big leg, he's got to be able to pin the ball inside the 20.

Great game the second time around. Playoff caliber game in terms of both intensity and quality of play.

I think the Ravens are a fabulous team. But I doubt they make it to the elite level if they continue to whine and make excuses every time things don't go their way. They need to become mentally tougher. The Pats, Indy, Pittsburgh and the Giants are all in a different league in terms of mental toughness, even though the Ravens are comparable in terms of overall talent and ability. They remind me a bit of San Diego in that regard.

Again, great game. Great win.

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Ice_Ice_Brady

The Ravens lack the mental toughness to be a great team. They allow a few questionable calls to rattle them. The refs did not hand the Patriots 14 points; the penalties resulted in 30 total yards, and they weren't even near crunch time in the game. If you're going to blame the game on 30 total yards worth of penalties, you have some big issues.

It's not like these were 50 yard Pass Interference penalties.

Frezo

In the first half, maybe the first qtr, Flacco had a pass disrupted when a Pat hit his arm during the throwing motion. Oher caught the pass. Isn't that an illegal forward pass to a tackle?

ctpatsfan77

I'd have to go back and look at the play, but I'm fairly sure they changed the rule a bit recently.

In any case, IIRC, once a player on D touches the ball, any player on O can catch the ball.

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mayoclinic

Yes, that's what I thought when I saw the replay. Oher should have knocked the ball down. As far as I could see, Flacco's arm was hit but the ball wasn't tipped, which might make a difference (I think it's ok for an OL to catch a deflected ball, though I'm not sure).

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PatsDeb

The ball was tipped, so the answer is no. The ref even said it during the game. No flag because the ball was tipped & the lineman became eligible.

spacecrime

I never would have come up with this myself, but now that you say it, it is obvious to me. Good analysis.

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KontradictioN

The Ngata roughing penalty was a joke. The Suggs roughing penalty had intent behind it and deserved to be called. The Wright roughing penalty was also iffy, but it was a helmet hit and the rules are the rules.

One of the more iffy penalties that's largely been ignored is the PI call against the Ravens on the pass to Welker. That could have really gone either way, but it didn't impact the play. That was just a bad, bad throw. I really thought they could have let that one go. Obviously, though, being that I'm a Pats fan I really don't care that they called it.

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Patspsycho

Great analysis.

I've said this before and I saw it again. People keep blaming Clayton for dropping the ball but McGowan was definitely in his field of vision and was right there for the jarring hit after he dropped the ball.

On the Bodden interception, did you see the Thistle formation set up in the backfield by Baltimore? Kudos to our safety for not biting and drawing down. Flacco must have seen high coverage and tried to thread it in, but his man took off, and Bodden knew high coverage was there.. didn't even bother to look- just timed it. That was one of the rare occasions Flacco threw with his eyes first and Bodden was all over that.

Also noticed when we went from man under on split safety, we also went from robber to bracket coverage to contain Mason, but also because keying on Flacco didn't seem to work and that is more credit to the development of Flacco as QB. Also I think that was a vote of confidence in the speed of our secondaries, or at least the playmaking instinct of Meriweather.

I've said this before but I expect Butler to shoot up the charts and start at some point. That was a huge vote of confidence on BB's part to throw him in at the 2 min drill because Wilhite was having trouble taking away the underneath for Mason. For that kid to come in cold like that and just make a game-changing play is crazy.

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bradydaman29

Oher did the smart thing. He had to catch the ball in case it was ruled a fumble. You can't take anything for granted. How silly would he have looked if he batted the ball down and then a pat recovered it and they called it a fumble - on further review.