The Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars played a football game Sunday. It ended perfectly.
The Ravens and Jaguars each entered the contest with a 2-6 record, suggesting the winner would be whichever team didn’t screw up too badly. Baltimore evidently didn’t receive the memo, as linebacker Elvis Dumervil committed an incredibly dumb penalty that opened the door for Jacksonville to pull off a miraculous 22-20 win on a last-second field goal by Jason Myers.
Blake Bortles completed an 11-yard pass to Julius Thomas in the closing seconds with Jacksonville trailing 20-19. The play advanced the Jaguars to just across midfield, at which point Bortles and the offense rushed to the line of scrimmage for one more play. The Jags were out of timeouts.
Somehow, Bortles snapped the football before time expired. And while others seemed confused about whether the play was live, Dumervil continued to rush Bortles, ultimately grabbing the quarterback’s face mask and spinning him to the ground. The officials called a 15-yard face mask penalty that put the Jaguars into field-goal range with no time left on the clock, and Myers nailed the game-winning kick.
It’s been that kind of season for the Ravens, who also missed an opportunity to ice Sunday’s game moments before Dumervil’s costly penalty. Safety Kendrick Lewis allowed a sure interception to slip through his hands on the play before Bortles’ completion to Thomas.
In Dumervil’s defense, he was one of the few players who went 100 percent until the whistle. That said, it still was an egregious face mask that cost his team a win, so it’s hard to defend him too much.
So yes, folks. Two bad teams played a football game Sunday in Baltimore. The Ravens were just that much worse.
