Ravens think missed delay of game penalty was 'pretty clear cut' originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
The Ravens have a lot to be proud of from Wednesday afternoon's performance against the Steelers, considering the sheer volume of players unavailable to play and the fact that they were on the road against the NFL's final unbeaten team.
The team's fight is a testament to the coaching, but for as much as John Harbaugh and his staff did right in an unprecedented scenario, they were also much-maligned for their clock management to end the first half.
The Ravens called their final timeout of the first half with 26 seconds left on the clock, to the surprise of commentators and fans online. They were less than a yard shy of the end zone, but a rush on second down would give them little wiggle room to run another play.
The Ravens did elect to run the ball, and it did end up backfiring.
This led to an irate Ravens sideline, with Harbaugh lashing out at the officials instantly for not calling a delay of game penalty on the Steelers, which would have given the Ravens time to run another play. After the game, he said it should've been a "clear cut" call.
It wasn't just Harbaugh who was confused about the non-call. Marquise Brown told reporters after the game, “I think that’s in the rule book – delay of game on the defense. But, I’m not a referee, I don’t know.”
Fill-in quarterback Robert Griffin III was disappointed by the sequence as well.
“I don’t want to comment on the officiating. So, definitely they were laying on top of our guys and not trying to get up. But we did get the play off and had the opportunity to score a touchdown there – we just didn’t complete that," the backup QB told reporters after the game. "It’s unfortunate, because obviously there was no time left on the clock, so we couldn’t even get a field goal. So, we lost out on complete points there. But it’s just one of those things...It just didn’t go our way today, in that regard.”
Baltimore used its first play to run the ball into the middle of the line -- a curious decision considering how congested that area of the field is and how long it can take player pileups to clear -- and then scrambled to reset for another play before the clock ran out. According to Harbaugh, the Ravens were comfortable that they'd have plenty of time to run both planned plays if the run failed.
As a few Ravens reporters pointed out, it took 18 seconds to get the pile sorted out and run another play, despite the fact that everybody was already at the line of scrimmage.
Most Steelers were happy to take their time getting up off the ground, understanding the clock situation. And nobody is expecting them to sprint back to the line to help their rivals. But one player stood out as taking more time than the others -- defensive lineman Vince Williams.
Williams stayed on the ground much longer than anybody else, even after nobody else is on top of him. In the replay, you can clearly see Ravens players trying to pull him up and Williams refusing to move, despite not being injured.
The Ravens did still get their second play off after the second-down run, of course. They managed to quick snap the ball with three seconds left, and Robert Griffin III put up a well-placed floater to practice squad tight end Luke Willson. But Willson was unable to come down with the ball thanks to a nice play from safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, and the Ravens were forced to go into halftime down 12-7 instead of with the lead. If Willson holds onto a ball that hit him right in the hands, this conversation is moot.
With more time left, they may have elected to go for it again on fourth down, understanding that field goals probably weren't going to win the game. Or they may have settled for the surefire three points, pulling them within one more field goal of a lead.
We'll never know what they would have decided, or how a different score would have caused things to play out differently because, in the eyes of the Ravens, the officials missed what should have been an easy call.
