Sour Grapes and Bonehead Moves

Can the Baltimore Ravens please just shut up? They had their chances last night in an oh-so-close 27-24 loss to everybody’s NFL darlings, (except mine) the New England Patriots. The Ravens controlled this game for 56 plus minutes and certainly should have hung the Patriots with their first loss to spoil the possible undefeated season. But in the end they couldn’t get it done and instead of admitting it like men they take the cowardly way out and blame the officials for their misery at the end of the game. Are you kidding me? These guys are an absolute joke. Now, look, I dislike the Patriots as much as anybody alive. In my opinion, they are not gracious winners which is a reflection of their diabolical head coach Bill Belichick who truly believes winning is life or death. This is a guy who was caught cheating by the NFL and as a result now has a vendetta against the rest of the league and wants to pound it into submission. It makes for a very unlikable team unless you are a fan. However, the Ravens should shut their trash talking mouths and deal with the incredible choke job they authored last night. After the game, I have to listen to Ravens defensive players tell the world how they were wronged by the officials and penalties? Gimme a break. The Ravens blew this game in so many ways. It was truly a team effort. Forget the penalties the Ravens felt were unfairly called against them in the last 3 minutes. I don’t want to hear it. The bottom line is the Ravens stopped the Patriots on 4th and 1 with about 1:48 left in the game and should have won the game, except for one thing: before the ball was snapped Ravens defensive coordinator Rex Ryan CALLED A TIMEOUT FROM THE SIDELINE! That’s why the Ravens lost. Forget anything else that happens after that. That was the game right there and Ryan had a complete brainlock. From there I have to hear the Ravens tell me how they were being trashed talked by the refs the whole game and that it was a disgrace. Forget that. What was a disgrace is Ryan calling a timeout while his defense is in the middle of a drive with all the momentum and making plays. That’s what killed the Ravens and allowed the Patriots to escape, nothing else. The fact that Ravens linebacker Bart Scott had a complete meltdown and cost his team 30 yards in penalties after New England scored the winning touchdown does not matter to me. Scott justifies his actions by saying one of the officials was calling teammate Samari Rolle, who is black, “boy” the entire game. I don’t know whether that will turn out to be true or not but it had no bearing on the game. It was all right there for the taking for the Ravens on 4th and 1 and Ryan blew it. Case closed. (And by the way, the winning TD was called correctly on the field. Jabar Gaffney caught the ball clean and in bounds) So now, because the Ravens couldn’t close the deal the sports world is faced with the prospect of this unlikable Patriots team going 19-0 and becoming the first team to go undefeated since the 1972 Miami Dolphins. The prospect of that nauseates me and many others but it looks like it might really happen. The only hope is that my team, the Dallas Cowboys, with Tony Romo and company, can make it to the Super Bowl and try to stick the dagger in themselves. We’ll see.