Seems somehow appropriate given the replacement ref stuff earlier for the season to end with a controversial call.
Meh, these things happen. It's part of the game. Refs will miss calls and sometimes they're bigger than others. And sometimes the heels win at the big one. But it was a hell of a game.
The Ravens won. I have no sour grapes. Congrats to them and hopefully we'll get it next year. In a way I'm kind of glad just to soak in the tears of all the overconfident Niner fans who will now be whining about the game for the duration of the offseason.
Yeah, I don't care who won either. It looked like a blow-out there for a while, but I'm happy it was close. FWIW I picked SF in my fantasy leagues. Edit: well, shit, I picked Baltimore. Amazing prescience and abysmal memory.
To me, the story of the game would have been that John Harbaugh went a little goofy during the power outage and didn't have his team ready to resume the game.
Great game, lighting issues and all. The 49ers pulled an excellent 2nd half. I felt there were some missed calls, but whatever. You get a 3 point game out of the Super Bowl? It's a damn good game.
I was naturally upset at the end of the game because the ball would have at least hit Crabtree's hands if he hadn't been held. It was just a great play so that the hold wasn't seen. The bear hug some Ravens player was putting on a Niners player during the punt/safety was just flat egregious, not that it mattered. But I don't whine over calls and say that's what decided a game. Only one game has been decided on a blown call (The Fail Mary). I'll whine a little over the inept playcalling at the goal line at the end of the game and burning time outs in the third quarter, gosh won't need those later on. But let's be honest, the Ravens pretty much flat outplayed the Niners for most of the game. You can't fall behind 22 points, commit far more penalties, lose the turnover battle and give up a 108 yard kickoff return and expect to win a regular season game much less the Superbowl. That it even came down to the chance of the Niners winning was ridiculous. The Niners are still coming together as a team. Their QB of the future didn't start until midseason. They still have maturing to do, maturity you saw in the Ravens. I do love that they never quit and don't seem to choke either (it must be tough being a Texans or Falcons fan). I sat there watching them after the power outage and thought WHERE THE HELL HAS THIS TEAM BEEN ALL GAME, but that's a function of their immaturity. Fuck it, they made it to the Show and that beats pathetically celebrating their first non-losing season (8-8 BAY BEE) like I did a few years ago.
The profootballtalk.com headline is pretty hilarious: "RAVENS HOLD NINERS OUT OF END ZONE TO WIN SUPER BOWL"
Haha, wow. I dunno I just can't let myself get all wound up in butt-hurt over that non-call. Edit: well the actual article doesn't really harp on it.
Nah, it doesn't. It's just a hilarious headline. I'm not really wound up, I just don't like seeing the refs decide games like that. I don't like it when officials exercise discretion. Personal pet peeve!
Kinda bummed about the game but not heartbroken (I was rooting for the 49ers, as Ingmar is a fan and it was sort of a karmic repayment for my Giants knocking them out last season). I would've loved to have a Harbaugh cam up in the corner of the screen, though, there were some magnificent temper tantrums being thrown I would've liked to have seen in real time.
I can when I include the non-call on the TD return and the non-call on the safety (4 more seconds man!!!11) I think our first task of the offseason should be we trade Culliver for a bag of practice footballs and come out ahead.
I was just hoping for an entertaining game. As a Lions fan, I'm used to not having a vested interest in the Super Bowl. There probably was a penalty on the Crabtree play, maybe. I don't know. I'm not sure if he could have made the catch even if he wasn't interfered with. The ball landed 3 yards out of bounds. Regardless, I'm just glad Ray Lewis is going away.
Ugh. You have four downs from inside the ten, Frank Gore, and Colin Kaepernick. AND SO SPAKETH RAY LEWIS' GOD WHO IS CURIOUSLY IDLE, "LET THERE BE PASSING," AND THERE WAS MUCH PASSING.
Hey guys what's going on in this thread. I was out and about after the game and the town is nuts. If we'd lost after that power outage nonsense my city would be on fire right now.
Why didn't Cary Williams even get a reproachful wag of the finger for shoving an official during that first scrum?
From the comments: "ESPN should create a new show where Lewis just re-enacts each week’s illegal or fined hits while using Rob Parker as a tackling dummy."
I hosted a very weird Super Bowl party. Half of the party were 49ers fans, half were Ravens fans. The 35 minute lights-out issue took it all to an insane level. The Ravens half were claiming it was deliberate sabotage by the '9ers, calling for blood, saying that if the '9ers won, it was staged. Us, the other half, decided to go out to the porch and drink some beers while we waited for the game to resume. We kept hearing the Ravens fans make phone calls, calling for blood, shotgunning beers, and yelling at nothing. It was crazy. The game started back up again, and they all quieted down. Until the '9ers scored repeatedly and almost clinched it, and then the wailing and screaming about sabotage started again (yeah, um, wait, who won again?), and me and the wife just had to say we were tired and kicked everyone out. An hour later, we get a phone call from one of the Ravens fans, drunk out of her mind, saying "WE LEFT OUR SNACK PLATTER DOWN THERE WE WANT IT BACK OH BY THE WAY YOUR TEAM LOST SO SUCK IT! RAVENS!" Me and the wife actually bought that snack platter (which they ate most of, fuckers, I really wanted to dig into the shrimp), and I doubt I'll ever talk to that fucking couple again.
The Ravens fans are a strange bunch. Nearly to a person of the ones I know insist that the Redskins are their rivals. Even though they only play each other once every four years. Well except for pre-season, which the Ravens organization and fans seem to treat as a game of such importance that it requires the dumping of gatorade when won. Redskins fans just kind of shrug and go back to hating the Cowboys.
That makes no sense. Now, if you mean we hate Redskins and their fans, that's different and mostly because they never shut up. The NFL keeps trying to pretend the two teams are rivals, but that's ridiculous - we're not even in the same conference. The only real rivalry the Ravens have is with the Steelers.
If you're asking me to explain I can only apologize as I don't understand it either. Although in reading my post I could see I was unclear and it could be construed that I meant the Redskins were the Ravens sole or main rival. I didn't mean that at all. Merely that of the Ravens fans I know(disclosure here I grew up in Annapolis, so I know lots)treat the pre-season game between the two as if it were much more than a match between a bunch of guys who are going to be cut on the following Tuesday.
I believe you, I'm just astounded is all. It's preseason, I'm just at a loss as to why anyone would care - especially since as you said, it's mostly a glorified try out. Then again, I probably could answer my own question by turning on sports radio for 10 minutes.
As far as anecdotal data goes, I grew up near Baltimore and currently live just outside of DC, and I have never once heard a Ravens fan express the sentiment that the Redskins were a sole rival, main rival, or any sort of rival at all. Obviously there's going to be ribbing and trash-talking when the teams do play due to their geographic proximity, but all the Ravens fans I know consider Pittsburgh to be the Ravens' main rival, and those are inevitably the regular season games that get the fan base most excited.
Yeah, no doubt that Ravens fans are a bunch of weirdos. They tend to be people that grew up and/or currently live in the Maryland area and enjoy the game of professional American football. Crazy, huh?
I like the argument that I just read on Grantland that the holding during the safety was intentional. Every player does it, and it is pretty blatant. The argument the author on Grantland made was that whether you hold or not, the refs award the safety anyway, and unless you hold so badly time runs out, the game doesn't end and the clock doesn't get rewound. I can't completely say that I understand the rules implications here, because I didn't understand the dropkick vs kickoff rules after the safety anyway last night. That said, the ref's didn't call the holding anyway, so the point is moot.
