Was it football justice prevailing? Or was it just a young player not quite sure what he was supposed to do—or what he was seeing, for that matter? Either way, the Baltimore Ravens almost undoubtedly cost themselves three points at the end of the first half in yesterday’s loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
I say football justice because it came on a drive that was extended only because of a big play made courtesy of a missed holding penalty, but that’s neither here nor there. With the clock running down on the half, facing fourth and 2, the Ravens, accidentally, ran a play.
As it turns out, C Tyler Linderbaum snapped the ball when he wasn’t supposed to. He told reporters after the game that he believed a defender was in the neutral zone, trying to get a free play, but even if that were the case, that isn’t what he should have done.
“It’s really just me not understanding the situation”, he said after the game, via Jamison Hensley. “Just making sure if the guy does jump offsides, then I can snap the ball, but just understanding the situation and making sure that he gets across the ball before I snap it”.
Even that isn’t quite what his head coach said after the game. John Harbaugh called it a “no-snap situation”, via the team’s website. He explained, “The idea was to run the clock down and not leave them time to come the other way and then just call a timeout and kick the field goal”.
It was 10-3 at the time, and a field goal would have made it 13-3. As it turned out, Baltimore would not score again for the rest of the night, true for their final nine drives, the second-longest stretch in the team’s history with Lamar Jackson at quarterback.
Of course, it’s impossible to say how the game might have played out differently. As it was, they had to run a play once Linderbaum snapped the ball, and since there was no play they were supposed to run, it didn’t really go anywhere. The Ravens just wanted to bleed the clock and possibly gain a free first down by drawing the defense offsides.
You can’t exactly say that the Steelers rallied from that or anything, at least offensively. Nobody even scored in the third quarter. The next score came four minutes into the fourth quarter by virtue of S Miles Killebrew’s blocked punt for a safety.
Ultimately, the play that proved to be the game-winning score would have made the same difference had the Ravens gotten that field goal. It was 10-8 when WR George Pickens scored the go-ahead touchdown with under two minutes to play. Only it gave them a four-point lead (following a failed two-point conversion attempt instead of a likely two-point lead at 15-13).
It may or may not have changed the outcome of the game—but with this offense, every point they don’t have to score is a big deal, frankly.
