Thanks for a Reason to Care

Last Monday's game between the Ravens and the Patriots was a great game. The Ravens did fall short (by about 2 yards) but they made me care. I'll be honest, aside from watching the Packers play every week I don't really care about the NFL regular season like I should. I just get sick of seeing the Patriots on every single Sunday and Monday night games, but if nothing else Monday's game made me care.

I found myself sitting on my futon rooting for the Ravens to win. Which was weird because I thought that I didn't care. I realized that I don't really want the Patriots to go undefeated. I'm not sure why, but I just don't. However, I do really believe that they will go undefeated, although their best shot at a loss is going to be at home against the Steelers this weekend.

As far as the game goes I admit, I only tuned in for the 4th quarter, but it was well worth my time. I was very impressed with Tom Brady. He was cool, calm, and collected and I really liked how he scrambled to pick up that pivotal first down late in the game. As far as the Jabar Gaffney's winning TD goes, it was a great pass but I don't think that he had complete control of the ball before going out of bounds. However, given that the call on the field was a TD I think the right thing to do was to have the play stand because there was NOT irrefutable visual evidence in support of it being incomplete.

The complaining about the officials was a bit too much for me to handle though. The holding call late in the game was legitimate, as was the timeout that Brian Billick called was legitimate too, although not timely. While the Gaffney call was debatable the defense on him wasn't very good anyways. People are failing to realize that even if that hail mary would have gone for a TD, Kevin Dyson was all over Patriot defenders throwing them aside, so it would have been pass interference anyways.

The Ravens played their hearts out, especially on defense. They just made too many mistakes. They were penalized far too much in the game and they just unraveled at the end (especially Bart Scott - fine pending).I thought ESPN's Monday Night Football announcers were annoying again, especially Tony Kornheuser, who openly rooted for his fantasy of a Baltimore redemption.

Overall it was a great game. The Patriots are still undefeated which makes for great drama down the road and best of all....I care again!

Sorry for the lackluster review of the game but I've got to go do some studying. Let me know what you thought of the game as well as the pivotal calls made down the stretch.