Harbaugh, who called the game “chaotic,” was asking the same questions. “There was a lot of contact the whole game,” he said. “The challenge for us is: what constitutes what? What constitutes pass interference or illegal contact? I’m not really sure right now.”
Ray Lewis, who has been a critic of any rules that protect quarterbacks, went on a diatribe afterward and, like Flacco, thought it spoke more to the integrity of the game.
“Honestly, we fight too hard to have this happen,” said Lewis. “There’s some serious calls that the refs missed, and that’s the way it is all around the league right now. For our league to be what it is, we have to correct that. These games are critical, and guys are giving it everything they have. If the regular refs are here, we know how those calls will be made. That should be the case, but it’s not the way it is right now. For Haloti [Ngata] to make that play? You can’t overturn that when Vick tries to push the ball with his hand. If the regular refs are here, that call isn’t made. These things are happening all across the league. We’re not attacking the [replacements] personally, but we need the real guys back. The league is being affected by it. If they want the league to have the same reputation as it’s always had, we need to fix it.”
The Ravens certainly had a legitimate beef about the officiating, but there were some other issues on the game film that concerned Harbaugh and his staff, including two big plays for the Eagles offense where the defense was decimated by its own confusion, At one point, in the second half, Ed Reed was literally jumped over by Celek as if he were a hurdle, not one of the highlights in the tackling career of the future Hall of Famer.
The Ravens were 1-1 and back home for a serious grudge match with the New England Patriots the following Sunday in Week 3. The inevitable questions followed as the national media descended on a primetime national television rematch between Flacco and Tom Brady. The NFL loves these kind of games that take on a broader interest since much of the nation saw the high drama in Foxborough eight months earlier. There was a rivalry brewing and revenge on the breath of the Ravens.
These two teams didn’t need to have a finish like the one in the AFC Championship Game to get the competitive juices flowing in Baltimore, where disdain for Boston sports teams has a long history. After all, baseball’s Red Sox and most of New England had been descending upon Charm City to take over Camden Yards for a decade. The Ravens eliminated the Patriots from the playoffs in 2010, but otherwise had struggled historically against Bill Belichick’s squad.
Belichick had always been something of enigma in Baltimore and had long ties to the organization and city in so many ways. In reality, he was the first coach of the Ravens. At one point during the Cleveland-Baltimore siege of his Berea, Ohio complex, Modell told the press that Belichick was coming with the franchise from Cleveland. But Art knew there was no way that he could put the dour, sour-faced coach on the front of moving the team, which Belichick believed destroyed his 1995 season.
Belichick was really a local guy, a kid who spent his entire childhood in Annapolis and graduated from Annapolis High in 1970. His father, Steve, was a scout at Navy and a lifer football man who taught Bill how to watch film when he was 10 years old.
