Baltimore Ravens fall to Steelers: Examining botched end of the 1st half

The Baltimore Ravens fell to the Pittsburgh Steelers. One major reason was a botched first half ending. Here’s what happened:

The Baltimore Ravens found themselves knocking on the door of the end zone with less than a minute remaining in the first half. The Ravens didn’t manage their timeouts properly, leaving them with no timeouts and time for just a couple of cracks at the end zone. The Ravens elected to run the ball with no timeouts, figuring if they put the ball in the end zone the time didn’t matter.

On the second-down and goal play, the Ravens fell short. The officials should have called a delay of game penalty on the Steelers for preventing the Ravens from getting to the line of scrimmage and snapping the football. The penalty didn’t get called and the clock left the Ravens with the option of spiking the football or going for it all on one play.

Instead of taking the points, Griffin III tried to connect with Luke Wilson on a play-action pass as time expired.  Wilson dropped the ball. The half was over. Baltimore walked away with no points. In a game that was decided 19-14 in the favor of the Steelers, John Harbaugh had his team waste a chance to score.

Either the Ravens got greedy and desperate for the touchdown, thinking they may not make it down the field again; or they failed to make a decision quickly enough and Griffin III had to make a play. The most likely scenario is that Greg Roman knew this was the plan and he called two plays at once. There would have been no time to call another play. There would have been no time to make a decision.

In the end, the Ravens did the one thing they could not do. They threw away points. They had a golden opportunity to at least score three points and walked away with zilch.