I'm actually not that bitter right now. That was one he...aven of a game, a hard-fought war between two high-octane offenses featuring two of the five elite quarterbacks in the NFL. Whew, did I get away with that one, or what??
The Baltimore Ravens scored two touchdowns in the first four minutes and 16 seconds, igniting sugary images of when they pulverized the Tampa Bay Buccaneers earlier in the year. Then Tom Brady evolved into Tom Brady 2.0, engineering two touchdown drives to tie the game at 14 after making key adjustments, coupled with the help of our offense's regression.
We could go forever discussing the what-ifs and what-abouts, but since we're working with a word crunch here I'm going to claim the play that changed the course of this game was when wide receiver Julian Edelman caught a bubble screen pass from Brady and catapulted a 51-yard bomb to Danny Amendola, who caught our secondary off guard like a basketball play.
Rashaan Melvin played the zone correctly, and by stepping up to help the flats, the corner allowed Amendola to sneak past him. Safety Anthony Levine couldn't adjust his angle of pursuit, which is why he ate dust for the 18 yards after the catch was made.
This game-tying touchdown affected the psyches of both teams, I feel, as Flacco tossed an interception to Devin McCourty in the offense's ensuing drive. The Ravens defense shut the Patriots out and forced a punt, but that didn't matter for Kubiak's offense. Flacco and Co. seemed a bit tilted, and the playcalling definitely went from aggressive to passive, reverting back to their old, conservative ways. Establishing the ground attack is what you're supposed to do in the Playoffs, but the razzle dazzle deployed by New England literally stifled the Ravens mental toughness.
Regardless of the result, one of our subscribers, aluminum swordfish, couldn't have worded how I feel any better.
Never been prouder to be a Ravens fan
This team gave it its all, fought through every shortcoming it had, and still almost found a way to pull it off. Not to mention all of the off field stuff they had to wade through as well. Joe played a helluva game, the offense looked really good, but Tom Brady just played one of the best games of his life. Hats off to him. I thought the one chance we had to win was for the front seven to dominate and they didn’t obviously. This Patriot team was much better than those we had beat in the past and this Raven team was probably not quite as good overall, but we still scared the [expletive] out of them. I like our chances next year. Great HC, elite QB, very very good on the OL and DL, and a chance for Ozzie to work his magic on secondary. Good season, tough loss.
Keep your heads up, fans!