Rob Long: Enough Already
This is completely embarrassing. No, not the fact that the football team I root for lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, but the fact that everyone, including Baltimore Ravens players, are blaming the officials for this loss more than the performance on the field.
Did the officials make bad calls? The answer to that is yes but I don't recall a season in which players and fans haven't complained about calls. Stop making it sound like if you had the "real" officials, there would be no blown calls. There were some bad calls, but we've seen this before in previous years. We see it in every sport without replacement officials.
The Ravens sported six point lead with 4:43 left in the game. The Eagles got the ball on their own 20-yard line and had to score a touchdown to win. Michael Vick marched right down field and shredded the Ravens defense, hitting wide open receivers in the process.
The Ravens got the ball back, trailing by one after Vick's one-yard touchdown run. There was just under two minutes left but they had two timeouts left. After taking the ball to their own 46-yard line, the Ravens had third and short.
Again, with two timeouts left, Joe Flacco throws two passes, one to Dennis Pitta, his fifteenth attempt of the day to his tight end and one to Ray Rice. The Ravens never ran the ball to pick up the first down in a situation that was clearly four down territory.
That wasn't officiating. The Ravens had opportunities and missed them. Flacco going 8 for 25 in the second half wasn't officiating. Enough with it. The Ravens lost a game after sporting a 17-7 lead at halftime. They gave up 486 yards of total offense. I'm hoping that there's no talk of officiating at 1 Winning Drive when the players meet to watch film. There are enough things for them to have to fix on their own.
Rob Long
