A New Hope: Steelers Win

Joe Flacco sucks.

HEEEEEEEATH

Heath Miller fumble?

I talk with people around me about how I’m promoting Troy for the Pro Bowl.

The Ravens get the ball first and Joe Flacco makes the hilarious mistake of taking a delay of game penalty after a timeout. Seriously, how do you even do that? 

Flacco is able to scamper for a first down Jay Cutler-style after the penalty, which keeps things alive. The Ravens would’ve had a first down anyway as Ike was flagged for an illegal contact call or something. The Ravens work it to 3rd and 1 and Troy mis-times the snap count and gets caught offsides, which nullifies a penalty. That lights a fire under Troy and he makes two great plays, diving to breakup a pass then coming up with a big stuff in the backfield. On 3rd and long, Flacco takes a shot deep for a wide open Jacoby Jones but he horribly underthrows him and William Gay comes charging in from behind to knock the ball away.

Narrow escape

A strange sequence of events follows with Ben hitting Paulson down the middle then the drive getting set back by a holding penalty, only to have a late hit actually called on Ben to bail us out. After that, Haley went to the Wildcat, which got us into 3rd and 1. Ben decided to do it himself and scrambled for 20 yards. Ben got sacked twice, but Dumervil got called for a facemask which gave us another crack inside the 20. The offense couldn’t do much with it. No clue what was even going on with this drive. Penalties all over the place. But Suisham is good.

Flacco airs out a perfect pass down the sideline for Smith, who somehow makes the catch even though Ike has perfect coverage. Seriously, great catch by Smith.

The Ravens piddle their way to another first down before a strange sequence ends the 3rd quarter. Flacco hits Brown and he gets dragged out of bounds by Allen. The refs rule a first down and time runs out on the 3rd quarter. The teams walk to the other end of the field then Tomlin challenges during the break. The refs overturn the original call on the spot of the ball and say that Brown was a yard short of the first down, making it 3rd and 1. They also put time back on the clock and re-spot the ball, forcing the teams to walk back to the previous side of the field. The Ravens wisely don’t waste a play with the clock running and let it run out without even snapping the ball and the teams walk back down to the other end of the field.

The defense steps up and comes up with a huge stop of Leach on 3rd and 1 but Harbaugh rolls the dice and Flacco sneaks for the first down on 4th and 1. With the ball in the red zone, Flacco stands in the pocket forever before being flushed out by Woodley towards the sidelines. Just before he runs out, he makes a quick spin move to evade LaMarr and fires a ball to a receiver standing at the goal line. At the last minute, William Gay streaks across in front of Jones and knocks the ball out of his hands.

Huge play by William Gay. Second touchdown he saved. The Ravens don’t do much else, but are close enough to cut into the lead.

During the break I pat myself on the back for predicting a 13-9 score in my guest appearance on the Purple Reign Show this week.

Apparently kicking a field goal gave Justin Tucker a giant ego boost because he tried a sneak onside kick to himself. That didn’t go so well.

Strangely enough, on one of the biggest drives of the game, Tomlin rolls with Felix Jones over Le’Veon Bell, who had 90 yards on just 17 carries to that point. Jones is able to pick up one first down to get us into field goal range then get us to 3rd and 5. Ben has AB wide, and I mean WIDE, open across the middle but opts to take a shot for the end zone. Ben makes a perfect pass that drops right into Derek Moye’s hands but he can’t make the catch.

The Ravens come out no huddle and start picking their way down the field, overcoming a holding penalty on The Blind Side. The Steelers sit back in coverage, not wanting to give up the home run play, but Flacco keeps taking the short stuff, converting two consecutive 3rd and 3s to move into field goal range. Despite the no huddle, the Ravens wind all kinds of clock and convert another 3rd and short on the fringe on the red zone. They run the ball a few times and Rice is able to pick up a first down inside the 5. The defense stood strong on the goal line and forced a 3rd down right before the two minute warning when Flacco went play-action and found Dallas Clark alone in the back of the end zone.

Two minutes. Ben with the ball. You pretty much knew it was going to come down to whichever QB got the ball last. If you didn’t, you didn’t read my game preview.

Emmanuel Sanders almost makes that null and void when he seemingly takes the kickoff back for a touchdown but he is called out of bounds.

Bizarre officiating. If it’s called a scoring play on the field, they can review it to see if he stepped out, but since he was called out, it was not reviewable. Nevertheless, the officials never reset the game clock and put the 8 seconds back on the clock that should have been there if Manny had stepped out. Also, he was marked out at the 34 by the official and they gave the Steelers the ball at the 37. There are literally no pictures of this on the internet that show him being out of bounds. No clue.

Back to the game. Ben gets things rolling with a pass to Cotch then tries to take a shot down the sideline for Sanders that’s nowhere close, but flags come from all directions for illegal contact. With the ball at midfield, the Steelers can take their time. Ben hits AB who makes a beautiful spin move to get away from a defender and get to the sideline. Bell gets a token carry to get us to the edge of field goal range. With the ball at the 35, the Steelers need a few more yards to feel comfortable.

Ben hits him on a double-slant route with AB cutting inside and Brown takes it down to the 24. The Ravens use a timeout but only have one left and the Steelers can pretty much run it down. Bell gets it to the middle of the field and the Steelers take their last timeout with 3 ticks left.