And a Cary Williams interception in the New England end zone secures it for the Ravens! The clock runs down, the players and press mob the field. A ruggedly handsome John Harbaugh embraces a classlessly hobo-esque Bill Belichick. Tom Brady mopes off the field... right into the arms of his supermodel wife. And it's officially a Harbaugh Bowl! Brother vs. Brother in the biggest sporting event of the year! Just a bye-week to go and then we head to the Superdome for a little piece of history!
6:32 pm, BAL - 28, NE - 13
I wonder if a defender has ever broken his hand tipping a pass thrown by an NFL quarterback from just a couple feet away. I don't think that happened to Darnell McPhee when he tipped Tom Brady's pass right into the hands of the Ravens secondary, but it would have been worth it for the turnover. Six and a half minutes to go. I wonder how many minutes Falco can burn during this drive.
6:14pm, BAL - 28, NE - 13
I learned this year that the flag of Maryland, the only US state flag based on English heraldry, contains the heraldic banner of George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore. It was adopted by Maryland in 1904. It is also the same flag that Anquan Boldin found in the stands, held by a stray Ravens fan, after catching his second touchdown pass in as many Ravens possessions. 11+ minutes left in the game, Patriots two scores behind.
6:09 pm, BAL - 21, NE - 13
I learned this year that a "play action fake" is when the quarterback fakes a handoff and then throws a pass. That's what happened on the play which Anquan Boldin caught for a touchdown. Now it's still a one-score game, if New England scores (goffabid) and then goes for 2.
I knew this before, but the previous play confirmed that if an offensive player lowers his head first before getting destroyed by a defender, there's much less chance of that defender getting called for anything. That's what happened when Stevan Ridley was demolished by Bernard Pollard to force the first turnover of the game. Let's see if the birds can make it a two-score game...
5:46pm, BAL - 14, NE - 13
Look at Dennis Pitta get DECAPITATED on a "clean hit" as soon as he comes down with a pass in the red zone... and is there a call? Helmet-to-helmet? Unnecessary roughness? I was surprised that he had the strength to get back on the field for the next play - where he redeemed himself by catching an easy touchdown pass. One-point game now!
5:37pm, NE - 13, BAL - 7
There's a lot of talk about home field advantage in football. You wouldn't think it would make as much difference as, say, baseball where the dimensions of each park vary significantly. But watching this game, it seems apparent that the home team has the advantage in that the refs make LITRALLY every call in favor of the home team.
These fouls getting called against the Ravens are seriously getting absolutely ridiculous. The third personal foul against the Ravens came against a player who did nothing except run down the field next to a receiver who got tackled. And then when a Patriots D/ST player makes contact with Ed Reed after he called for a fair catch after New England's eventual punt... silence from the decrepit skeletor that passes for a referee in this game.
And it doesn't stop at personal fouls: apparently defenders are allowed to dive in front of the receivers to trip them up without a pass interference call. There's still a lot of football left to play; which is undoubtedly going to result in about 34 more penalties called against the Ravens. Let's hope they can supplement the blatant favoritism with a few more points.
5:11 pm, NE - 13, BAL - 7
A pair of touchdowns marked the second quarter: one an amazing running move by Ray Rice, and one a 3rd down catch by Wes Welker. Just when the Baltimore defense makes you think they've made a great goal line stand with two stops in a row, a couple dudes get confused on their coverage, and New England's lead stands at 3. With less than half a minute left in the half, the Pats are trying to pad that lead.
The next play: Brady is forced to scramble, and in trying to slide his way to safety, he does his best Ty Cobb impression and puts his spikes up right into Ed Reed... and yet doesn't get called for a foul. Personal Fouls now stand at 2-0 in favor of the Ravens. There's John Harbaugh pleading his case on the sidelines - you can read his lips as he shouts to the ref, "He kicked him!" Of course that's nothing compared to his brother's meltdown earlier today. It would be great to see them play against each other in this year's Super Bowl.
And in the final seconds, Brady's poor time management forces them to kick a field goal rather than having one or two attempts to score a touchdown, and it's a 6-point game. Let's hope that Ray Lewis gets a few more awesome tackles to justify his out of control emotions in what could be, but hopefully isn't, his last entrance.
4:27 pm, NE - 3, BAL - 0
This year was my first year as an aspiring football fan. I've followed baseball for so long (my time as a fan officially hit puberty this year - it's been 13 seasons since I started obsessively following the sport) that I felt I had some bandwidth to expand into new sporting frontiers. However, I made the mistake of using Fantasy Football as my gateway into the NFL, which had the consequence that once my team was knocked out of the playoffs - despite having the best record in the regular season - I checked out of the sport.
This was a selfish mistake, since the end of this season and the playoffs have been extremely exciting for the team I have adopted as my own, the Baltimore Ravens. After placing first in the AFC North, they first took care of their longtime rival Indianapolis (nee Baltimore) Colts, finally giving me occasion to wear my "Beat Indy" shirt (with Johnny Unitas's 19 on the back) and have it make sense. Then came a five-hour marathon matchup against the number one seeded Denver Broncos, who lined up behind longtime Colts signal-caller Peyton Manning, new neck and all. And now, as I type, they're down 3-0 in a rematch of last year's AFC Championship matchup against the New England Patriots.
As we head into the second quarter, I'm going to try to get a better handle on the inner workings of how a football game plays out on TV by live-blogging a game for the first time ever. So far nothing that interesting has happened except for a personal foul call against an extremely emotional Ray Lewis in the final AFC Championship game of his career - the 13-time Pro-Bowler announced his retirement shortly before the playoffs. Now let's see what happens as the Ravens drive it past midfield for the first time in the game...
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