Challenges remain a challenge for Ravens coach John Harbaugh.
After two unsuccessful attempts in Sunday’s 27-24 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders, Harbaugh has not had a single play overturned on his past six challenges, according to Pro Football Reference. Since 2022, he’s 2-for-12 (16.7%) overall. Five years ago, Sports Illustrated found that NFL officials had overturned 38% of plays challenged in regular-season games over the prior two decades.
“If you want to have a winning percentage in challenges, just don’t challenge stuff,” Harbaugh said at his weekly news conference Monday. “Just let it go. If you miss a challenge ... if you have one that you should have challenged that you don’t challenge, it doesn’t get counted against your record, but I don’t think that way. I’m not worried about the record that someone might be printing about what your challenge record is. I’m trying to think about the opportunity and the game to see if we could have a chance to use a challenge to our advantage to try to win the game.”
Harbaugh’s three failed challenges last year were largely inconsequential. The Ravens won all three games in which he dropped a red flag, including their divisional-round playoff game against the Houston Texans.
The ramifications Sunday were more severe. Late in the second quarter, wide receiver Zay Flowers was ruled to have not completed a catch on second-and-8 that would’ve pushed the Ravens comfortably into kicker Justin Tucker’s field goal range. With Flowers insistent the catch was good, and the offense somewhat disorganized in the ensuing transition to third-and-8, Harbaugh challenged the play.
The play was upheld, and Tucker missed a 56-yard field goal two plays later. When the Ravens got the ball back about a minute later, they marched down to Las Vegas’ 22 with less than 30 seconds remaining. But they were out of timeouts, and Jackson didn’t have enough time to take a shot into the end zone. They settled for a 32-yard field goal by Tucker and a 9-6 lead just before halftime.
“That’s probably a situation where I don’t mind taking a chance there on that one, because Zay did have his hand under the ball, and maybe there’s a chance that they’ll turn that over,” Harbaugh said Monday. “I thought probably it was less than 50-50 when I saw it, because I saw it, I looked at it. I saw it. I knew what happened right away. I thought, ‘You know what, I don’t mind a timeout right here. Let me see if we can get them to turn that one over,’ because his hand was under the ball, but I can see why they didn’t overturn it.”
Harbaugh’s second challenge was more controversial. With the Ravens leading 23-13 early in the fourth quarter, Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams was ruled to have completed a toe-tapping 30-yard catch at the Ravens’ 9. Harbaugh’s challenge was again unsuccessful.
Las Vegas turned the field position into just a field goal, but the Ravens were again left short-handed at the end of the game. They couldn’t stop the Raiders from draining the clock on the final play of their go-ahead drive, and quarterback Lamar Jackson took over on the Ravens’ final possession with just 27 seconds and no timeouts available.
“The second one was moving fast, and I saw it from afar, I saw it quickly on the replay board — it was a quick shot in the booth,” Harbaugh said. “I thought to myself, ‘It’s really close. There’s a good chance his toes are still on the ground, but there’s a chance his toes are off the ground,’ and we didn’t have time to get another look at it, so I decided in the heat of the moment to go ahead and take a shot at it, because I felt like if we win it, that’s going to really help us, and if we don’t win it, I’m hoping that timeout’s not going to come down and be the difference.
“But I don’t have the luxury to know that we’re going to need that timeout for sure. If I’d have been more conservative on that, I wouldn’t have thrown the flag, because usually, I throw the flag. ... In situations like that, I’ll usually throw it when I’m sure. I decided on that one to take a shot, and it ended up hurting us, because we didn’t have the timeout at the end of the game.”
