INGLEWOOD, Calif. — In a game of inches, sometimes the most important edge is where the officials spot the ball.
The Ravens got shortchanged on two occasions in their mud fight with the Chargers on Sunday night, missing out on first downs even though replays showed them crossing the marker. Coach John Harbaugh didn’t indict the officiating but acknowledged that Baltimore struggled at times with the ball spot.
“We had trouble with the down and distance and what the spots were pretty much the whole game, just understanding what it was going to be,” he said.
In the second quarter, Lamar Jackson had a lengthy scramble to the sideline but was marked a yard shy, leading to a fourth-and-1, which the Ravens failed to convert on a direct snap to Gus Edwards. Harbaugh said the Ravens thought Jackson looked short on video, so they decided not to challenge.
In the third quarter, Nelson Agholor was marked shy of a first down on a 21-yard completion, which the Ravens did convert two downs later on an Edwards run. That play elicited confusion. The Ravens didn’t realize at first that they weren’t given the first down. Agholor said he thought he was past the marker.
“We thought it was ruled a first down,” Harbaugh said. “We thought it was a first down until the next play that we realized it was short. That was the challenge we had pretty much four or five times during the game.”
The Ravens didn’t challenge either spot. But Harbaugh eventually pulled out the challenge flag to contest a first-down conversion that L.A. attained with a lateral from Keenan Allen to Austin Ekeler. Both the lateral and the first-down spot were upheld.
Harbaugh acknowledged that his staff didn’t get a good look at the replay before throwing the challenge flag, but he felt the complexity of the lateral deserved a second look.
“We thought it was a big enough play and there was a chance, a really good chance, that it was gonna be a forward pass,” Harbaugh said. “It turned out to be dead even. It was about as close as it could have been and still be legal.”
Harbaugh wasn’t the only one surprised by the ball placements. Jackson admitted he had said on the sideline he had gotten a first down on his scramble but shied from directly criticizing the officials.
“It’s part of the game,” Jackson said. “Things happen fast. Sometimes it is what it is. Hopefully we get the first down next time and make it easy on the refs.”
The Ravens have made only one other challenge this year, getting a reversal on an out-of-bounds pass by Arizona’s Josh Dobbs. Baltimore opponents are 2-for-3 on challenges.
In his career, Harbaugh is 51-for-120 (42.5%) on challenges.
