7 positives, 10 negatives, and 3780 words about the Ravens 22-19 OT loss to the Colts
Negative: The NFL and the officials got away with robbery
Let's be honest for a minute here.
Yes, the Ravens could have done more to win this game and they shot themselves on their collective foot. They had the matchup won after an impressive first drive and should have kept on going from that point on. They had multiple chances to do so, but they failed at it.
But, at the end of the day, they didn't get any help from the refs. Hell, it's not even that they didn't get "help," because calling the penalties on the facemask and DPI on Flowers in regulation and overtime would have been the correct calls by the rulebook.
Refs missed a big pass interference call on the Colts defense.
— Arye Pulli (@AryePulli) September 24, 2023
Zay Flowers was upset. pic.twitter.com/iOTBOiECSs
If anything, the referees helped Indianapolis while not properly calling the game from both teams' perspectives, no matter how you look at it.
Both the facemask and the interference on the overtime pass that Lamar missed and Flowers could never grab were so glaring that the referees on the field should have had no problem spotting them, let alone with the benefit of having more than two eyes taking care of that and with this thing called "replay" available to them.
Again, no excuses here because the Ravens shouldn't even have been in a position to let an uncalled penalty decide their fate... but the NFL did Baltimore dirty on Sunday.