Baltimore Ravens' Coach John Harbaugh Sunday's Don’t-Hit-Brady Game
Photo: Associated Press
It is so bad that you just want to run down the hall and tell your mother about it. Even after two days, the image just won’t go away.
See, Brady is an NFL golden boy, Super Bowl champion, etc., etc. His New England Patriots beat the Ravens 27-21 Sunday in Foxborough in a key AFC matchup.
Baltimore is having a bad dream over the notion of Tom Brady in a skirt.
It is so bad that you just want to run down the hall and tell your mother about it. Even after two days, the image just won’t go away.
See, Brady is an NFL golden boy, Super Bowl champion, etc., etc. His New England Patriots beat the Ravens 27-21 Sunday in Foxborough in a key AFC matchup.
But for a lot of Ravens fans, along with pro football commentators and observers nationally, some of that Brady mystique is taking a beating after perceived favoritism the QB received on officials’ calls Sunday.
Two particular drive-extending roughing-the-passer penalties against Ravens’ tackle Haloti Ngata and linebacker Terrell Suggs that led to two second quarter New England touchdowns are drawing major scrutiny around the league.
It was not so much that the refs threw the flags. Ngata was whistled for a clear blow to the side of Brady’s helmet. More questionable, Suggs was flagged for brushing Brady’s knees while falling to the ground -- the "Brady Rule." Clearly, the NFL must have rules to protect its quarterbacks, but Ravens coach John Harbaugh says Brady got calls his QB Joe Flacco didn’t. Harbaugh wouldn’t claim favoritism outright, but his words at his Monday press conference were clear.
Flacco "got hit (six) different times hard, and there was one call," Harbaugh said. "Tom didn’t get hit five times. We want him to be hit more than he was hit, but when he did sort of get hit, it was called. That goes to the credibility of the whole thing."
Others were even more strident on the charge of Brady favoritism. His former teammate Rodney Harrison on the NFL Sunday night pre-game show on NBC looked into the camera and told Brady to "take off the skirt." On the Suggs brush by, Brady excitedly pointed toward his knees and the penalty was called.
Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis simply termed the penalties "embarrassing." Brady, who is coming back from a knee injury that wiped out his 2008 season, mockingly countered after the game that the refs were right to throw the flags. Brady, Lewis said in the tit-for-tat, "is good enough to make his own plays. Let him make his own play. When you have two great teams that are going at it, let them go at it. …The embarrassing part is when he understands that, and he walks up to one of us and says, 'Oh, that was a cheap one.' "
Lewis’ comments served to shine a spotlight on the seemingly obsession in the NFL with the pristine Tom Brady brand.
Harbaugh said he was submitting film to the NFL showing what he believed to be questionable calls. Ron Winter’s officiating crew called 14 penalties for the game for 126 yards – 9 for 85 yards against the Ravens, including a puzzling 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty against Harbaugh in the third quarter.
If anything, the Don’t-Hit-Brady Game came down, as usual, to none other than Patriots coach Bill Belichick. He may have outsmarted everyone again.
Belichick conceded he game-planned for penalties – noting that Winter and his crew have been the league’s most aggressive officiating crew at calling penalties the past two years. "It tells me the game's going to be tight. So yeah I did mention that to the team. And they did call it tight."
Those damn Pats.
