109 to 15. That’s how many penalty yards the Baltimore Ravens had Sunday compared to the Las Vegas Raiders.
It’s a significant difference in a 26-23 loss, especially when many came on critical drives.
There was the Ronnie Stanley holding call that turned Derrick Henry’s 9-yard run into an 8-yard loss. The Ravens didn’t get a first down on that drive after the call and instead attempted a field goal that Justin Tucker missed. A little closer and maybe the Ravens would have had those three points.
Then there was Nnamdi Madubuike’s 8-yard sack that became a 15-yard gain for the Raiders when he was called for a face mask penalty.
And Brandon Stephens’ defensive pass interference that converted a third-down stop into first-and-goal at the 1-yard line for the Raiders. They scored on the next play.
All three came at critical times. None of the three was clear-cut.
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Madubuike pleaded with the ref, tapping his chest to show he didn’t grab quarterback Gardner Minshew’s face mask, a claim that was confirmed by the television broadcasts but not by the officiating crew.
The replay on Stephens’ penalty showed both players grappling and then Stephens knocking the ball free.
Coach John Harbaugh can’t outright say the referees were wrong without being fined. The Ravens can submit plays for review. In the meantime, Harbaugh said, he’d have to see both those and cornerback Marlon Humphrey’s pass interference from a different angle.
“I wouldn’t know what to say on either one of those what to say to those two guys,” Harbaugh said. “It looked like perfect technique from where I was, but I’ll have to look at the TV copy to see what the official thought he saw when he called that.”
Safety Eddie Jackson went on to call the penalty on Stephens “BS.”
Harbaugh also said that, when he watched Stanley’s form on the replay of the holding call, it looked like there was “nothing I could coach him on,” implying that he did everything right.
Those were big plays that stalled the Ravens’ momentum or gave the Raiders an extra burst.
“I think the penalties extended drives,” Harbaugh said when explaining what deflated the defense’s previously impressive game. “That’s the biggest thing. If those drives don’t get extended, you get them backed up, you’re going to be off the field, they don’t have the opportunity to make plays. ... You got a fourth-and-forever, and a pass interference takes you down to the 1, you’re usually going to score from the 1.”
But the Ravens are hardly innocent. Those were just three penalties among a whopping 11.
There were a handful of holding calls and false starts that made the offense’s job more difficult. And the offenders were the veterans more often than not. Seven-year veteran tight end Mark Andrews and nine-year veteran Henry were both flagged for false starts. Andrews was called for one for 5 yards. Henry was called twice for 9 yards.
“We had the false starts, those really shouldn’t happen,” Harbaugh said. “Those are things that we just got to take a deep breath. And that shouldn’t happen. We’re better than that.”
Henry did not agree with the ones called against him.
“I wasn’t moving forward; I just moved my leg to the side,” Henry said. “I was trying to get my balance, and he snapped it right after. But I wasn’t false starting; I was just moving my leg. I guess they called it a false start. It is what it is. I’ve got to be better.”
There are plenty of candidates for worst penalty of the game, but one came at the most inopportune moment. On Jordan Stout’s final punt of the game, the Ravens were penalized because cornerback Ka’Dar Hollman started out of bounds. Stout’s punt was already too short, going just 24 yards. Combined with the penalty, the Raiders took over at the Baltimore 48-yard line with 2 minutes, 27 seconds to go. They easily made the go-ahead field goal.
Even Harbaugh had his share of mistakes.
Twice, he threw the challenge flag. Twice, he lost, resulting in the loss of two timeouts.
The first time, he was challenging that wide receiver Zay Flowers completed a catch, despite the evidence otherwise on the screens in M&T Bank Stadium. The second time, he challenged that Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams didn’t make a catch, despite, again, what the replays seemed to show.
“That [first one] was close; I thought that one had a real chance,” Harbaugh said. “But also we had two timeouts, plenty of time. It almost felt like I was calling a timeout and kind of giving our guys a breath of fresh air, which I wanted to do, so it was worth taking a shot there. The other was such a high-leverage play. He had such an opportunity, and we went so fast. I just thought it was worth it in the heat of the battle taking a shot at it. I would have hated to see later that he was clearly off the ground and not done it. That’s the challenge of the speed of the situation, sometimes.”
Harbaugh said there are people upstairs helping him make that call, but it still has to go fast because the other team is trying not to give you the chance to challenge.
“You’re not going to be undefeated on challenges over the course of the season,” Harbaugh said. “I don’t think that’s the difference in the game.”
But the loss of the timeouts affected the Ravens’ offensive momentum just as the loss of yardage did.
When the Ravens got the ball back with 1:37 left in the first half, they had to attempt a field goal on third down rather than getting in one more shot at the end zone because they didn’t have a timeout. Likewise, they didn’t have a timeout when they got the ball back with 27 seconds left in the game.
The Ravens also didn’t agree with the way they were penalized in Week 1 against the Kansas City Chiefs, particularly with how Stanley was called for four illegal formation penalties (he wasn’t called for any this game). Stanley explicitly said he thought he was being unfairly penalized, while Harbaugh danced around the topic, saying that, based on tracking data, they weren’t worried with where Stanley was lining up.
Stanley said after the Raiders game that this loss felt more self-inflicted than the loss to the Chiefs. He was referring to the Ravens’ overall performance, but the 109 penalty yards, compared to 64 against the Chiefs, certainly had an impact.
Maybe there were more unfair calls made or missed against the Ravens, but as Andrews said, “it’s the game of football.” The discrepancy between the teams, 94 yards, was not all on the officials.
“Sometimes you rely on outside sources and things you can’t control,” Andrews said. “So, for that, you can’t change it. Gotta move on; gotta get better.”
