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Sweet, CBS switched over to the game

And the Steelers fumble the kickoff, Bears recover, come on, huge opportunity to go up on Steelers, have to take advantage

And Pittsburgh is down by 3 with 15 seconds left. Come on Ravens, lets get down the field and take some time off the clock.

In other news, Chicago and Pittsburgh tied at 14, Chicago lining up for a FG with 20 seconds left

Good hold, Fabian's played awful, but he stepped up to make a tackle there.

Back on the radio, apparently they pulled the stream. Fuck fuck fuck, this aint good. Come on D, step up

This is a big drive, we need 6 here.

3rd and 18....how the hell does that happen?

That's the Ravens D I'm used to seeing, and the Raven's O I'm not.

Thank you much, dee.

Right, but the way things are going we'll sack him twice, and then he'll throw for 40 yards on 3rd and 25. Any idea whats up? I don't get to see the game and the normal stream I watch died on me, so I'm relying on satellite radio for the call. Are the CBs getting beat badly, or are their WRs just making plays?

Someone wake up the Ravens' D, Rivers already has 255 yards. We have played 6 quarters, have not forced a turnover yet. I am now worried.

I think that the most impressive statistic is that the Ravens ran 85 plays during the course of the game. In fact, everyone is making a big deal about the 43 pass attempts, but we also ran the ball 42 times (I grant you, some of those were pass plays when Flacco took off, but we still ran the ball upwards of 35 times this game.) Also, Flacco hit the magic completion percentage number of 60% (60.4%, to be exact), so while he was inaccurate on a couple throws, it wasn't as if he had no idea where it was going.

KC still had 2 TOs, so they had to run the ball 3 times anyway, and the clock still wouldnt be dead. I think on 4th down, he wanted to get Willis in the end zone

Haha, streaming the game (with a delay, so i saw your post before it actually happened :P

This is going to come down to Hauschka....

For comparison's sake: Ben's two playoff games as a rookie: 31-54, 407, 3 TD, 5 INT, 61.3 rating, 1-1 (also lost in AFC Championship) Ben's playoff games the very next year: 58-93, 803, 7 TD, 3 INT, 101.7 rating, 4-0 I think Joe's gonna be alright. For all those bitching and moaning about Joe, sure, he didn't play well, but to pin the loss on him is a gross oversimplification of the events of the game. And remember: he is a rookie. He has exceeded even the most wildly optimistic expectations for him this year, and has led the team to do the same. He will learn from this, and come back next year ready to make his mark on the league, with a year's worth of game tape to look at. So stop complaining, and remember the unexpected, entertaining, and unbelievable ride we have been on this year, and even though the team fell short of their ultimate goal, I think this has been my favorite Ravens team to watch thus far, and a good part of that is the play of Joe Flacco

Flacco couldn't make a play because he didn't have anyone open. Often as not, there was absolutely nowhere to throw the ball. When your QB is sitting back there for 7-8 seconds while your line picks up a blitz, looking from side to side on the field and not seeing anyone open, there is not much he can do. I put a lot of blame for this on Cam for deciding to call that goddamned stop route to Mason and Clayton so many times, i was wondering when someone would pick up that it was coming. Look at Flacco's first two picks: both were that same little "run two yards past the first down marker and turn around" route. Against a good defense, running the play that often is going to lead to the cornerback jumping it (1st pick) the safety coming underneath (the 2nd) or the guy just not being open (every other time they ran it today). And as for the penalty, how many times do we see how stupid penalties like that have a huge impact on games? JJ in the first game, even back to Orlando Brown in the 2003 playoff game against the Titans. In this game, the personal foul on the Steeler's OL is what brought us back into the game. It pushed them back, made them punt, and allowed Leonhard to get a good return, and set up our first. In all likelihood, that doesn't happen without the penalty. On Stone's penalty, your offense late in the game is going to be so much different if you only have 30 yards to get into field goal range than if you need 55. You worry about running because you don't want to kill too much time in case you have to punt. You press because you feel like you absolutely have to make a play. And most importantly, in a game that is as predicated on emotion and momentum as football is, the feeling of hope and confidence is so much stronger without that penalty. That is why that penalty had such a huge impact on the game.

Defenseless means that he is in the air after a pass has gone by. In the NFL rules, a ballcarrier cannot be considered defenseless by definition.

But that's just it, he didn't lead with his helmet. He lead with his shoulder, but McGahee was not lined up like he thought, and so their helmets connected. Also, in the case of Boldin, the penalty wasn't for helmet-to-helmet, it was hitting a defenseless receiver, which McGahee wasn't. Anyway, just remember that while this loss hurts, we weren't even expected to sniff the playoffs this year. Flacco is a rookie, hes going to have bad days against good defenses, so its kind of early to give up on him like it seems like some people are doing here. We'll be back next year, Flacco will have a training camp in which he is expected to be a starter (remember, he started the year as a 3rd stringer), and we'll have some new toys for him to play with (like a receiver that can get open consistently, maybe?) I know it hurts, but just relax, don't get on Flacco too badly, and be glad with all the memories this unbelievable season has given us.

We need points right here if we want to have any chance.

That was a good play by Sweed to break that up, and coverage by Walker. Sweed hit that arm that Walker hurt in the first half.

Jesus was that a lucky break

Tried to run before he caught the ball

No way, it bounced the completely wrong direction for it to even come close to hitting him after the bounce, straight back into the field while the player was running off of it. We'll see when they inevitably replay it after the game, and it pops up on youtube (which it hasn't yet) but after watching it closely 4-5 times during the game, it didn't hit, and it would have been to early for him to be out of bounds even if it had.