In a game where they were down by two touchdowns on multiple occasions, Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels had to get creative to try and stop a Ravens pass rush that got to quarterback Tom Brady quite a bit in the first half, including two sacks during a second quarter drive that knocked them out of field goal range.
The result saw them employ a four man offensive line while adding an additional player up front as an eligible receiver. To make matters worse, the Patriots didn't report the eligible receiver until just before the snap, preventing the Ravens from being able to adjust.
 Brady and the offense got creative in the second half to slow down the Ravens' defense. (USA TODAY Images) |
The result? A second half that saw them outscore Baltimore 21-10 and now the Patriots will advance to yet another AFC Championship game next weekend at Gillette Stadium.
The move apparently caught Ravens head coach John Harbaugh by suprise and he wasn't happy about it, further adding some future fire to a rivalry that already has enough bad blood between the two sides.
"It's a substitution type of a trick type of a thing," explained Harbaugh after the game. "So they don't give you the opportunity, they don't give you the chance to make the proper substitutions and things like that. It's not something that anybody's ever done before. The league will look at that type of thing and I'm sure that they'll make some adjustments and things like that."
Harbaugh said he spoke to the officials to try and understand what was happening because he was trying to get a handle on the players that needed to be covered. However, what really frustrated him was the fact they were snapping the ball so quickly which made it difficult, and the Ravens coach said that there was "deception" in what the Patriots were doing.
"We wanted an opportunity to be able to ID who the eligible players were, because what they were doing was they would announce the eligible player and then time was taken and they would go over and snap the ball before we even had the chance to figure out who was lined up where, and that was the deception part of it," said Harbaugh. "And that was where it was clearly deception.
"The officials told me after that they'd give us the opportunity to do that, which they probably should have done during that series but they didn't really understand what was happening. That's why I had to go and take the penalty, to get their attention so that they would understand what was going on because they didn't understand what was going on. And they said that that was the right thing, that they'd give us the chance to ID the eligible receivers so we could actually get them covered. That's why guys were open, because we didn't ID where the eligible receivers were at. So, that's the nature of that particular thing they were doing, that's what made it so difficult."
Harbaugh said that he hadn't seen it before, and also went on to say that, "Nobody's ever seen that before." When asked if he considered it cheap or a dirty tactic, he said he wasn't willing to comment on that.
Brady was pretty blunt during his press conference when asked to react to Harbaugh's comments, and surprisingly candid.
"Who knows. Maybe those guys gotta study the rule book and figure it out," said Brady. "We obviously knew what we were doing and we made some pretty important plays. It was a real good weapon for us. Maybe we'll have something in store next week."
After being told that Harbaugh called it clear deception and that the league was going to look at it, Brady reacted saying, well, let them.
"They'll look at it then," said Brady. "I don't know what's deceiving about that. [They] should figure it out."
For now, the Patriots were able to overcome the game plan the Ravens had put together to stop them, and whether Harbaugh likes it or not, New England has advanced to battle the winner of the Colts and Broncos next Sunday at Gillette Stadium.
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