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Whose fault is it that the Ravens lost to the Titans on Sunday?

Faceoff

October 7, 2008

Blame it on the Ravens

By Bill Ordine

No question that game officials came up small in the Ravens' 13-10 loss to the Tennessee Titans on the roughing-the-passer penalty against linebacker Terrell Suggs on third-and-10 with 5:50 left in the game.

The zebras failed to stop the play on Tennessee's false start, and referee Bill Carollo simply missed the call on Suggs' alleged blow to the helmet of quarterback Kerry Collins.

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But that didn't cost the Ravens the game.

The Ravens flat-out squandered an opportunity to knock off an undefeated opponent, and it was a team effort - defense, offense, special teams and coaching.

Even the Ravens will acknowledge that after the roughing call, the Titans, trailing by four points, needed to march 65 yards against one of the NFL's most stifling defenses. Tennessee did just that, converting on third down twice and getting help from the Ravens with a 12-men-on-the-field penalty at the Ravens' 31-yard line.

The offense, with an opportunity in the last two minutes to mount its own drive for a tying field goal, failed as it did for most of the day. What could have been a statement-making offensive series ended after just two downs with quarterback Joe Flacco throwing his second interception of the game.

Ravens kicker Matt Stover continued his slow start this season by missing a 45-yard field-goal try at the end of the first half.

And the clock/timeout management preceding Stover's miss had fans scratching their heads. There were 48 seconds remaining, and the Ravens had a timeout left when they snapped the ball on Willis McGahee's 14-yard run that went to the Titans' 22-yard line. But the Ravens didn't get off another offensive play as tackle Jared Gaither had a false start and Stover was subsequently sent out.

Ravens fans might feel they were robbed by the guys in the striped shirts, but in truth, it was the bunch in white, purple and black who gave it away.

Blow the whistle on ref

By Childs Walker

I usually hate it when fans attribute a loss to an official's call. Every game is a complex organism composed of thousands of interdependent actions. Therefore, reducing any result to one pivotal moment has almost always struck me as folly.

That said, I believe that if referee Bill Carollo had not whistled a 15-yard penalty on Terrell Suggs to extend the Tennessee Titans' fourth-quarter drive Sunday, the Ravens would have won the game.

Good professional officiating is as much about the calls you don't make as the ones you do. Does anyone seriously question that, under a strict reading of the rule book, referees could call penalties on every down of every NFL game? Every time the ball is snapped, 22 men of unimaginable speed, power and drive fight for every hint of an advantage. If one of them blatantly ignores a rule or threatens another player's health, then a penalty has to be called. But if a referee can avoid interrupting the game's natural flow by ignoring a borderline call, he should keep the flag in his pocket.

I don't know how Carollo could have watched that play and believed Suggs was swinging dangerously at Kerry Collins' head. He appeared to fight past a block, lunge to swat the ball and catch Collins on the shoulder, near his helmet. It probably didn't rank among the 100 most violent acts committed in a very physical game. Yet Carollo ignored the game situation and the spirit of the rule in favor of a textbook call that might not have been correct on its narrowest merits.

If he had never thrown his flag, the Titans would've punted from deep in their territory, and the Ravens could've run out the clock with a few first downs. Did Joe Flacco's poor decision-making and the defense's inability to pressure Collins on the remainder of that drive also cost the Ravens? Well, sure.

But sometimes, a single poor call can collapse the whole, intricate structure of a football game. And it happened to the Ravens on Sunday.

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Whose fault is it that the Ravens lost to the Titans on Sunday?

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Ravens questions? Just ask.
Each week, Baltimore Sun reporter Jamison Hensley will answer fans' questions about the Ravens. To submit a question, e-mail sports@baltsun.com. Please provide your name and phone number so we can verify the e-mail.