Strangely enough, the pass was the first-ever interception thrown by a 49ers quarterback in a Super Bowl, which speaks volumes for the legacies of Joe Montana and Steve Young, who had thrown 17 touchdowns with nary a pick in those championship games.
Flacco drained the clock in the second quarter and continued to move the offense from the 38 down to the San Francisco 14 before stalling for a Justin Tucker field goal attempt on 4th down. After setting up in formation for the kick, the play was a direct snap to Tucker who rushed around left end needing nine yards to get a first down. He made it to the 6 before Darcel McBath corralled him just short of the sticks.
So, up 14-3, John Harbaugh was looking to go into the end zone on a fake field goal rather than take a 17-3 lead with 3:05 left in the first half. Big brother was going for the jugular, while his Ravens had little brother’s 49ers on the ropes, and their young quarterback had the early yips and a big deficit.
But, it didn’t work.
Instead, the Ravens pinned the 49ers in at the 6 and forced them to punt three plays later, and Flacco got the ball back at the San Francisco 44 with 2:07 left in the half. He missed Jacoby Jones on first down on a short pass, but found him flying down the field on third down. Flacco short-armed the pass, but got enough under it for Jones to stop, catch it, fall and then get up to do a Three Stooges-style routine runaway from Dashon Goldson, Chris Culliver and Tarell Brown. The hometown boy flipped and flopped into the end zone on a 56-yard bomb that ignited the Ravens fans and bench at the Superdome.
“That was just back yard football right there,” Jones said. “That was catch him if you can. That’s like playing freeze tag.”
Flacco said the play was made by the pump fake. “It was third-and-10, so it was a perfect time to run that little pump that we ran,” he said. “I kind of said to Q [Anquan Boldin], ‘You think we should pump it here?’ Right as I was saying that, our coordinators were saying, ‘We’re going to pump this.’ It was just that perfect depth, third-and-10, just enough so that they could come up and bite on it – think that we’re throwing the ball to the sticks. I had to step up and throw the ball on the run and Jacoby (Jones) had great concentration. I didn’t want to overthrow him there. He just did a great job coming down with that football and getting in the end zone. He made some great moves.”
8
The Ravens were up 21-3, but Kaepernick still had time with 1:45 on the clock. Defensive tackle Haloti Ngata was called for a roughing the passer penalty on the second play, which put the Niners in business. Kaepernick hit Delanie Walker on a 28-yard pass down the middle that put them in range for a field goal. Another Kruger sack grounded the 49ers, who settled for another Akers 27-yard field goal to make it 21-6 at halftime.
Jacoby Jones said he tried to sneak a peek at the halftime extravaganza featuring Beyonce from the locker room area and it got him pumped up for the second half kickoff he knew was coming his way.
Earlier in the week Jones proclaimed, “If I were them, I wouldn’t kick it to me, not at all.”
But the 49ers didn’t heed his advice.
Loosening up for the second half after the traditionally long halftime break, Ray Lewis approached Jones and waved him over. Lewis rubbed Jones’ chest up and down twice, almost like he was rubbing sweat off his body or dusted off his wardrobe. He said, “C’mon!”
Less than a minute later, on the opening kickoff of the second half, Jones fielded the ball eight yards deep in the middle of the end zone and was at full speed by the time he got to the 10. Following the lead block of Anthony Allen through the middle of the field, Jones brushed by a diving McBath and took off at a pace that no one could match. Jones streaked toward the end zone, stopping only to perform his second touchdown end zone dance of the night, this time striking a pose that every Ravens fan around the world could identify and celebrate: he did a spot on, low diving, high kicking version of the Ray Lewis Squirrel Dance to perfection. Harbaugh had given special teams coach Jerry Rosberg a tip that helped spring Jones.
