Belichick fumed at the rare mismanagement of the clock.
The weekend of the AFC & NFC Championship Games are very interesting for conversation in Mobile, Alabama. On the day of the games, the remaining 28 losing NFL teams are gathering there each year for the week of Senior Bowl activities. Much like the combine, it’s the one time a year when the entire coaching, scouting, and personnel staffs of the league convene to find intelligence, football players, and more than one cold libation.
At the Original Oyster House in Gulf Shores, Colts head coach Chuck Pagano was having dinner with his general manager Ryan Grigson and 35-year NFL veteran coach Jimmy Raye, watching the drama unfold. Many of the Senior Bowl visitors were diagnosing the action and pontificating about how the second half in New England would end this time around.
“All of these guys are nervous, they’re all tight,” said Pagano, who was on that Foxborough field the previous January with Harbaugh, Flacco, Lewis, and the crew and was still stinging from the loss to his friends with the Ravens in Baltimore two weeks earlier. “I said, ‘What’s wrong with you guys? It’s already over. I know how this is going to end. Order another round!”
His cohorts said, “What are you talking about?”
“C’mon, 4th & 29 and then Denver, where they hit a 70-yard pass with 30 seconds left and then get outta there with a win in overtime,” Pagano said to Grigson and Raye. “Plus this is the last ride for Ray Lewis. Fellas, this thing has already been written. There’s no way the Ravens are losing!”
Pagano had battled with these guys for four years and four playoff disappointments and had battled against them earlier in the month and lost. He knew their resolve.
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“Between the adversity that I dealt with and the good things that have happened, I realized you have to take your hands off the steering wheel and say, ‘There’s a plan here. We have no control over it.’
“He has a plan,” Pagano said. “He makes no mistakes.”
Tom Brady didn’t make a lot of mistakes, either. He had never lost a playoff game with a halftime lead in Foxboro. The score was 13-7, and the Ravens were gathering underneath Gillette Stadium preparing to let it fly in the second half.
As they took the field in the second half, Lewis told his troops, “We’re gonna let our rushers rush and our corners cover. We’re in a heavyweight fight. Let’s stick together. I love y’all too much. There’s no way we’re losing this game.”
The teams traded punts to start the second half, and Flacco took over with 10:03 left in the third quarter, leading the Ravens down the field. Pitta went for 22. Then Rice went for 15 more after a catch and run in the middle of the field, showing flashes of his 4th & 29 shiftiness. Smith, Boldin, and Pitta all caught passes moving the Ravens to the 5.
On the next play, Flacco hit Pitta on the right side for a 5-yard TD pass, and the Ravens led 14-13.
Flacco simply played catch on that drive and what once felt so difficult was suddenly much easier against the Patriots.
8The Ravens defense held Brady to a three and out on the next possession, and this time, Flacco took the ball at the 37. Ten plays and 4:50 later, and now into the fourth quarter, Flacco hit Boldin on a 3-yard TD throw to cap the march. The Ravens suddenly had an eight-point lead on the reeling Patriots, who couldn’t get their defense off the field or stop the almost Brady-like water torture of short passes and quick runs while shoving a shotgun, no huddle Flacco-led offense down the throats of the defending AFC champs.
With the score 21-13 and just under a quarter to play, the Ravens weren’t about to lose focus, and the defense knew it was on them to stop Brady because the offense had done enough to win the game already.
Brady used Ridley on the first three plays, moving the Patriots from their starting point at the 16. Brandon Lloyd caught a 12-yard pass, and the Patriots were on the 39 and gaining momentum.
On the next play, a simple Ridley run off the right side, Ravens safety Bernard Pollard laid a vicious hit on the running back from LSU, jarring the ball loose and leaving him lying on the Gillette Stadium field with a concussion. Arthur Jones fell on the football, and once again the Ravens offense was ready to pounce.
“That was the turning point of the game,” Harbaugh said. “That was the turning point of the football game there on the 40-yard-line. It was just a tremendous hit. It was football at its finest. It was Bernard Pollard making a great physical tackle – just as good a tackle as you’re ever going to see in football right there. That just turned the game around right there.”
After the game, Pollard downplayed it and offered as much sympathy as one defensive football could offer. “It was just a tackle,” Pollard said. “It’s football. He broke a hole and us as safeties, we have to fill when needed. That’s football. I hope he’s OK. We as players are competitive in the moment, but when everything calms down, you want that guy to be OK. That is our brother.”
Flacco hit Torrey Smith on a 16-yard pass, then scrambled to the sticks for 14 more. Jacoby Jones caught a short cross to get to the 11, and Boldin caught his second TD pass of the afternoon to make it 28-13 with 11:13 left.
8But, of course, it’s never over with Tom Brady, who is a legend and will one day be enshrined in Canton for winning these kinds of football games. But, make no mistake about it, the hole was deep against the Ravens this time.
Brady took over at the 29 and began the charge, hitting Lloyd for 12 yards and Shane Vereen for nine more. Welker, Vereen, and Deion Branch were creating havoc in the secondary, and the pass rush wasn’t getting to Brady fast enough on the drive that had gone all the way to the Ravens 19. Vereen dropped a 2nd down pass in the flat, and Brady missed Welker on 3rd down setting up a Brady 4th down scramble where he showed a rare moment of indecisiveness. Instead of trying to beat Haloti Ngata to the chains – and he might’ve made it – he opted to throw a soft pass at the feet of Deion Branch in the end zone.
The Ravens took over at the 19 with 8:27 left and a 28-13 lead. Flacco and the offense opened the door on three consecutive incomplete passes by not bleeding the clock, and Koch punted it back to the New England 40 with 7:25 left.
And as everyone who has watched him play over 14 seasons expected, Brady just kept coming.
Brady hit Welker down the left side on a 36-yard play with Corey Graham giving chase. Now at the 24 and about to enter the Baltimore red zone, Brady dropped back to throw again across the middle to Aaron Hernandez. Instead, defensive lineman Pernell McPhee reached his left arm high into the air and tipped the Brady pass at the line of the scrimmage, and it went straight up and landed in the diving arms of linebacker Dannell Ellerbe, who fell at the 18.
This time, with 6:49 left, the Ravens offense went to the ground, pounding the Patriots with the offensive line opening small-but-effective holes for Ray Rice and then Vonta Leach. Baltimore moved the chains three times before punting back to the Patriots with 2:11 left and a 15-point lead.
Brady moved the Patriots down the field in a two-minute drill. And as many of the Foxborough faithful filed out of Gillette Stadium and the several thousand travelling Baltimore Ravens fans made their way into the lower bowel of the stadium, a purple celebration was set to unfold in anticipation of the AFC crown and Super Bowl berth.
8When Cary Williams intercepted Brady’s pass intended for Lloyd in the end zone, a raucous version of the White Stripes song “Seven Nations Army,” which had become a battle cry and chant for Baltimore Ravens fans all season, broke out in the crowd that remained for the final gun. There would be no clutch field goals needed or a big miracle catch or a defensive stop of Tom Brady.
The drama was over.
The Ravens had gone into New England and soundly whipped the Patriots 28-13. They were going to Super Bowl XLVII.
As the postgame frenzy ensued, Belichick shook hands with Harbaugh and caught Ed Reed on the way off the field and said just two words to the player he’s shown such obvious public and private affection for – the “other” Hall of Famer from The U.
“Finish it!” Belichick said to Reed as he looked him in the eye.
“We will, Coach. We will.” Reed said.
Before the postgame ceremony began and the presentation of the Lamar Hunt Trophy took place inside the closed locker room, the players saluted the people who made the journey. The lower bowl was a purple Little Baltimore at Gillette Stadium. Many players high fived these delirious fans who made the 400-mile trip. Ray Rice jumped into the stands and mugged for pictures. Harbaugh raised his arms and brought Joe Flacco over to the stands and screamed “That’s Joe Flacco! That’s your Super Bowl quarterback!”
