The Story of The Anti-Drive

How often is the goat named Billy?

Ladies and gentlemen, you just watched Billy Cundiff (right) lose his job.

Cundiff missed a 32-yard field goal to cap off what I will refer to as "The Anti-Drive."  Short of a turnover, he last four plays of the Ravens' last possession were as bad as it gets when you're trying to tie or win a football game in the waning seconds.

Down by three with under a minute to play, the Ravens drove from their 21 with Anquan Boldin making a 29 yard catch to put them in field goal range.

Cue the "Anti-Drive"

The next play saw Flacco finding Boldin again.  Boldin was stripped by Pats' Corner/Wideout Julian Edelman, but luckily the ball rolls out of bounds and the Ravens gain 9 yards.  The next play, Flacco finds Lee Evans in the endzone only to have the ball knocked out of his hand by Pats' backup Cornerback Sterling Moore.  Then Flacco dropped back on third down and despite having some daylight to run for a first down, rolls right and avoids the rush by throwing a dangerous pass to Tight End Derek Pitta that was deflected.  Then Cundiff comes out to tie the game, misses from 32.  Game.  Set.  Match.  Pats win 23-20.

The ending of the Anti-Drive was very curious, though.  The question I have is why did the Baltimore Ravens not call timeout before the Field Goal.  They had to rush the snap because they were inside of four seconds on the play clock.  It threw off the snap and Cundiff.  You can blame John Harbaugh, you can blame Billy Cundiff, you can blame Lee Evans or you can blame any combination of the three.

The fact of the matter was that the Ravens play great today.  Flacco out-dueled Brady, making plays with his arm and legs.  In fact, that was the best game of Joe Flacco's career.  Flacco's receivers played very well.  Boldin and Torrey Smith were making plays.  Jimmy Smith and LaDarius Webb each made great plays in picking off Brady.  Vonta Leach kept making big holes for Ray Rice to run through and may very well just be the best fullback in football.  The Ravens won the turnover battle.  They did everything they needed to do to win today.  Except win.

It took an Anti-Drive for keep the Baltimore Ravens out of Indianapolis.

They're Called The Ravens Defense For A Reason

Ed Reed, Ray Lewis and Terrell Suggs are as dynamic of a
defensive threesome as there has ever been.

The Baltimore Ravens defense is still alive and well. The Ravens held the Texans to one offensive touchdown and forced 3 turnovers to pull out a victory, despite a pedestrian offensive effort of their own. Despite the Ravens collection no sacks and only two tackles for loss, the Ravens were solid in preventing the Texans from moving the ball. This was in large part due to the fact that Ravens' punter Sam Koch averaged 49.3 yards on nine punts, giving the Texans a longer field to work with all day long. This enabled the Ravens to hold the Texans to 13 points, despite 100+ yard efforts rushing by Arian Foster and receiving by Andre Johnson. What Baltimore's defense did do, was take advantage of Texans' rookie Quarterback T.J. Yates's mistakes. This lead to a Tebowesque passing day for Yates completing 17 of 35 passes for 183 yards and 3 interceptions.

As for Houston, their defense did not have a terrible game themselves. It just came down to the fact that their offense made more mistakes than Baltimore's game. It's rather simple actually. Baltimore won because their punter gave them better field position, their offense was more experiences and made less mistakes and their defense forced more turnovers. But don't discount the fact that Joe Flacco has a legitimate number one receiver in Anquan Boldin who caught 4 balls for 73 yards and a Touchdown, which made the difference in the Ravens' 20-13 victory.

However next week, the Ravens travel to New England who they have traditionally had trouble with in the postseason. They face a far more experienced offense and a defense who, like the Ravens, had a successful outing against a young quarterback. These are the two best teams in the AFC squaring off, and by all means a fair fight.