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Breaking Down the Officiating in New England Patriots Loss to Baltimore Ravens | Bleacher Report
An epic breakdown from Frenz of all the penalties from Pats-Ravens. By his final estimate 5 of the Pats 10 penalties were clearly invalid, while only 2 of the Ravens 14 were.
This was the worst call of the night right here:
If Sunday night’s Patriots loss to the Ravens felt familiar there’s good reason. Since the start of the 2011 season the Patriots have been in 10 games that were decided by one score or less, and in those games their record is 4-6, with the majority of the six losses being decided on the final drive.
Here’s how those ten games break down:
Of the four wins, two should be credited to the Patriots offense. Against Dallas in 2011 Tom Brady led the offense on a touchdown drive that stole the game from the Cowboys, and against Miami the Pats offense was able to hold on to the ball long enough to run out the clock to seal a 27-24 win.
Of the other two wins both have credit going to special teams. I’d chalk the AFC Championship game to a failure by the other teams special teams, or at best a success of the Pats special teams. Either way, the Pats defense didn’t do much to stop the Ravens on the final possession, and had Sterling Moore not knocked the ball from Lee Evans’ grasp it would’ve been a decisive defensive failure.
The other win came against Indianapolis in 2011 and it was a Pats-recovered onside kick that preserved the tighter-than-it-should’ve-been victory over the Manning-less Colts.
That brings us to the six losses. One goes to special teams failure (missed field goal two weeks ago against the Cardinals) and one goes to offensive failure (a Patriots safety that killed any chance of a comeback against the Steelers in 2011).
But the other four of them were defensive failures on the final possession of the game, just like we saw Sunday night. And let’s remember the Patriots have only lost six games total since the start of the 2011 season. That’s right, four of the six came on what amounted to the final drive by the opposition.
In order they were:
2011: Bills 34, Patriots 31 – Defense allows 17 points in the 4th quarter including an 8-play, 70-yard drive for the game winning field goal as time expires.
2011: Giants 24, Patriots 21 – Defense allows 14 points in the 4th quarter including a 9-play, 64-yard touchdown to effectively end the game.
Super Bowl 46: Giants 21, Patriots 17 – Defense allows a 9-play, 88-yard touchdown drive that left only 57 seconds on the clock, ultimately giving the Giants another Lombardi Trophy.
And finally our newest entry from last night…
2012: Ravens 31, Patriots 30 – Defense allows 10 points in the final 7 minutes, including an 8-play, 92 yard touchdown drive and a 7-play, 70-yard drive for the game winning field goal as time expired.
As you can see all four of these games feature frighteningly similar endings with the Pats defense allowing long drives late in the fourth quarter that sealed the loss. Of course the offense can shoulder some of the blame too, but as soon as the Patriots failed to convert their final third down against the Ravens, history made it pretty clear how the game was going to end.
If the Patriots are ever going to win another Super Bowl their defense is going to have to learn how to close out games again. We can only imagine what might’ve happened against the Eagles in Super Bowl 39 if it was our current defense out there. Instead of a Rodney Harrison interception we might be looking at Donovan McNabb raising the Lombardi.
What it comes down to is playmakers making plays when it’s all on the line. This is still a young defense and this is the final step in their maturation. As we saw on Sunday night they are so close. If McCourty or Arrington just holds on to one of those interceptions the Patriots likely win the game. They’re not far off, but the question is can they turn that last corner this season?
The only time in 2011 the Patriots defense got a stop when they needed one most was when Jerod Mayo intercepted Rex Grossman to seal a 34-27 win over the Redskins. And that was after the Redskins had drove 71 yards and looked poised to tie the game from the 9-yard line.
The last time before that the Patriots defense closed out a game was Peyton Manning’s final time facing the Pats as a Colt in 2010. Wow, it’s been a while.
Knee Jerk Reactions to Week 3: Pats vs Ravens | Barstool Sports: Boston
Nobody can wrap up a horrible Patriots loss from a fan perspective quite like Jerry Thornton.
As we said last night it’s hard to analyze anything too closely without the caveat of how horrid the officiating was but let’s give it a go.
Yes the Ravens offense got a big boost from some timely flags that jump started their momentum, but after three straight forced punts to start the game the defense suddenly reverted to 2010/2011 form.
The pass rush was non-existant from any point and the Pats were chewed up short and long. Everyone knows Flacco will do that to you if he can stand in the pocket and he did just that. Nothing we didn’t see coming, we just couldn’t get him off the spot with Jones, Ninkovich, or even Trevor Scott who got a shot as well.
Kyle Arrington had a rough game all around, and Devin McCourty dropped two more interceptions bringing him to a season total of three. It’s still early but I think replacing Arrington might be an off-season priority.
We were just starting to see why Edelman has potential as an outside receiver when he was lost with a hand injury. Hopefully it’s nothing serious.
Brandon Lloyd is really showing that he is everything he was advertised as being. His presence on the outside of this offense made it unstoppable for much of the night.
Are we still going to trade Wes Welker after that 142-yard performance?
Gronk: 2 catches, 21 yards. What’s going on there?
24 penalties total for both teams. Unfathomable. And more defensive holding penalties that I’ve ever seen. One was on McCourty for just brushing the receivers shoulder. An all-around travesty and I’m never a “blame the refs” guy. Even if we had won I wouldn’t have felt good about it.
A lot of 3 TE power sets with Hoomanawanui, Fells and Gronk. Curious to see the numbers on that.
Still didn’t seen enough push from the offensive line in the running game, but that’s a tough front. The pass protection was solid again, only sacks I can remember were just because everyone was covered.
Still some runs got absolutely destroyed behind the line of scrimmage.
This was the first time this season I thought we could’ve used Andre Carter.
Would it be too much to ask for someone to make a play on Kickoff return?
Sterling Moore still playing over Ras-I.
Nice to see Patrick Chung making that impact play on the 4th down stop. Been a while since we’ve seen something like that out of him.
Hard to get too depressed about this one, and in the long run I think it will serve the Patriots well. That’s as tough an environment as you’ll find and our young defense showed their age.
Aside from all the horribleness of the game last night I really need to get one these BB sweatshirt/windbreakers. I just don’t get why he left the sleeves on. Anyone think that might be why we lost?
https://www.patspropaganda.com/aside-from-all-the-horribleness-of-the-game-last/
Patriots-Ravens Drive Summaries
These are always a good way to quickly sum up how it went.
On offense it’s those last two punts that stand out, including the fact that both only lasted 6 and 8 plays respectively. Still they had 5 long scoring drives where they looked generally unstoppable. The offense looks as promising as ever.
On defense it’s the four drives of 80+ yard touchdown drives that tell you everything you need to know. They were shredded for long sustained drives and of everything I take from this game this is the most concerning factor.
People often complain about pass rush when it’s really not that bad but this was one game where it showed what a non-existent pass rush can get you. I’ll be curious to see how if many (if any) pressures the Patriots actually got on Flacco.
But if you want to sum it all up look at clutch time, the last two possessions for each team. Pats punted twice, Ravens had two long drives for a TD and a Field Goal.
Before I write anything here it would be impossible not to mention the astoundingly awful job done tonight by the replacement officials. Really, it’s hard to talk about the game because what we saw on the field really wasn’t the kind of football I’m used to watching. It was not NFL football. And both teams got screwed over and over again, so it’s hard to really distill any of it into real criticism, constructive or otherwise.
I hope this is the tipping point, but I doubt that it is. Until we the fans stop tuning in (and stop blogging) the NFL has no reason to bend to the real refs.
So I’ll try to analyze the game the best I can in the coming days, but the calls were unbearable for both sides, not to mention how close the final field goal actually was. But let’s just pretend the refs weren’t as big a part of the game as they clearly were.
The worst part of the game (outside the above mentioned stuff) was just how entirely predictable it was for the Pats defense to watch the Ravens march right down the field for the winning field goal. It’s something we’ve seen over and over again. Last year’s game against these very Ravens was the only time in recent history where the Pats defense somehow pulled it out of their ass with a good play (Sterling Moore) and an incredibly lucky miss.
As soon as the offense failed to convert the third down at two minutes it was clear what the outcome would be. Replacement officials or not.
Part of the blame can go on the offense for not being able to close things out, but we’re at the point now where it might be a better strategy to just not put the defense out and let them score an uncontested 80-yard touchdown so we can get the ball back and try to pull it out ourselves.
Kidding aside, this loss isn’t going to haunt me that much because the Patriots being 1-2 is so novel. It’s the closest thing to a legitimate early season challenge in the last decade. We’ve steamrolled our way through the regular season for so long it’s almost expected now. Sure, there’s always a clunker or two like all teams have. Well not this year. Now the Pats are in 3rd place in the AFC East and it’s a spot they haven’t been in a long time.
Let’s hope we’re getting our annual defensive collapse on the final drive of the game out of the way in September. Because there’s no doubt this is a talented Patriots team, and despite their record, one that I’d already say is better than last year’s version.
There will undoubtedly be all kinds of piling on this week (or perhaps the refs will get the brunt of it). Pundits saying the Patriots are done. We’ll find out just what this team is made of next weekend in a tough road test in Buffalo. Oh boy, this is going to be an interesting season. I kinda like it.