The Ravens Have To Look In The Mirror After Being Complete Bone Heads
The Baltimore Ravens are not going to the Super Bowl after losing in the AFC Championship Game 17-10 to the Kansas City Chiefs, and the Ravens should be kicking themselves because they lost the game due to boneheaded mistakes. At the same time, Kansas City made zero of them, and that is the reason why Kansas City will be heading back to its fourth Super Bowl in the last six years.
The Raven's defense held strong for most of the game and didn't even allow the Chiefs to score a point in the second half, but they did give Kansas City three easy points to close out the first half when they gave the Chiefs 30 free yards in penalties.
Kyle Van Noy got a personal foul call after the play was over, getting into it with Travis Kelce, and Travis Jones got a roughing the passer called on Patrick Mahomes, almost ripping his helmet off. Each penalty was 15 yards and set Kansas City up nicely for free three points.
The Raven's offense also had major boneheaded issues, and rookie wide receiver Zay Flowers is at the root of much of this. At the end of the third quarter, Lamar Jackson threw a bomb to Flowers for 54 yards to set themselves up nicely at the Kansas City 10-yard line. Still, Flowers decided he wanted to taunt Chiefs defender L'Jarius Sneed and got a 15-yard penalty, but that wasn't even the worst thing Flowers did on that drive.
Four plays later, Flowers caught an eight-yard pass going into the score to make the game 17-14, and Sneed came over and knocked the ball out of his hands at the goal line, and he turned the ball over.
He took at least six points off the board, probably seven, since Justin Tucker is the best kicker in football and wouldn't miss the extra point. Flowers' quarterback Lamar Jackson also made a massive mistake in the fourth quarter, throwing an interception in the endzone where the Chiefs held a team meeting. There were three defenders around Raven's tight end. Isaiah Likely and Jackson decided to throw, and it went the other way.
The Ravens' defense also made a huge mistake when the Chiefs had the ball on the game's last drive, and Baltimore was down seven and needed a stop; the defense had 12 men on the field and gave them a free five yards.
You aren't going to beat Patrick Mahomes when you turn the ball over three times and have over 100 yards of penalties.
Kansas City was very beatable on Sunday, but the Ravens beat themselves. Kansas City let the Ravens implode, and they will be heading to the Super Bowl; the Ravens have an entire offseason to sit on what could've been if they had used their brains instead of playing with emotion.
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