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FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — It had everything.
Tom Brady and Ray Lewis, the greatest players of their generation on each side of the ball, jawing at each other.
- Mike Wise
- Columnist
NFL playoffs 2012: Cundiff’s missed field goal is a horrible end to a game that had everything
Joe Flacco given chance after chance to redeem himself, finally leading his team downfield for a tying or go-ahead score in the final two minutes.
A maligned New England defense showing it can stop someone; a maligned Baltimore offense, about to close the deal in the crucible of the AFC championship game.
Unsung heroes, lead changes and an inexplicable, wild finish — a 32-yard field goal to send it into overtime — a “kick I’ve kicked 1,000 times,” said Ravens place kicker Billy Cundiff.
“I just had someone tell me that’s the first kick I’ve missed in the fourth quarter all season,” he said, swallowing. The stat was used to bolster his late-game credentials, but somehow it made the miss that killed Baltimore even worse.
The game that had everything left the Ravens with nothing.
Gillette Stadium goes berserk. The Ravens go home — for good.
The misfire that handed the New England Patriots their fifth trip to the Super Bowl in 11 seasons with 11 seconds left Sunday, Cundiff said, would at least teach his young children about adversity. He’s right.
He spoke of Coach John Harbaugh telling him he still believed in him, how he never felt prouder about the Ravens organization than at the worst moment of his NFL career. That, too, was a heartfelt, genuine sentiment.
But all I really heard perfectly was Cundiff’s remorse about letting his teammates down, about Lewis. “You know Ray has poured his heart out, and he’s had a long career, and you don’t know how many years he has left, and to let him down is pretty tough.”
That’s it. It’s over.
Oh, Lewis has another two years on his contract. But Ed Reed is 33 years old. Flacco still has this bizarre identity crisis, worried he will never get the adulation and acceptance he says he’s not worried about receiving but keeps on talking about it as if it’s more important than any Lombardi Trophy he hopes to one day raise.
The Ravens may be good for several more years, but this was their last opportunity to be great in the Ray Lewis era — and they couldn’t do it on a day they had everything going for them.
Flacco outperformed Brady, who tied Joe Montana for the most postseason victories in NFL history and surpassed John Elway for No. 4 on the postseason yardage list.
In fact, in one of those fine-line-in-sports moments, Flacco was a millisecond from hitting Lee Evans for the game-winning touchdown. If he does, and the Ravens hang on in the final 30 seconds, the perception of Flacco changes overnight. He goes from a guy who played well enough not to throw the game away to the quarterback who ran a two-minute drill like the best in the business en route to taking his team to the Super Bowl.
But Patriots cornerback Sterling Moore made the defensive play of the game, swatting the ball away after Evans all but had it in his grasp for six points that would have won the game.
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