Simmer down, Bill Belichick haters. Ravens coach John Harbaugh has thrown cold water on the theory that the Patriots used a faulty scoreboard to help them win Sunday's AFC Championship Game.
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It has been mentioned that kicker Billy Cundiff was rushed on his doomed 32-yard field-goal attempt late in the fourth quarter after Gillette Stadium's error-filled scoreboard threw his pre-kick routine out of whack.
The scoreboard indicated it was third down when it actually was fourth, but Harbaugh shot down the notion that the discrepancy had anything to do with Cundiff pushing his kick wide left in a heartbreaking 23-20 Ravens loss.
"We knew what the down and distance were on our last series," Harbaugh said Wednesday, according to the team's official website. "The scoreboard was not a factor for us. Any suggestion that the wrong down information was a deliberate effort to affect the outcome of the game is nonsense."
The Baltimore Sun reported Wednesday that the NFL hasn't received a complaint from the Ravens, and the league's on-site football operations crew didn't make note of any issues late in the game.
Ravens safety/Patriots slayer Bernard Pollard also refused to blame the scoreboard for Baltimore's demise, though he does believe mistakes were made in clock management.
"The team was confused, but when you look at the wide picture, we had a timeout, and the time was ticking down (so) we should have called a timeout," Pollard said Wednesday on "The Jim Rome Show." "But you can't turn back the hands of time, and we were sent home packing."
The case appears to be closed here, so everyone move on. Well, everyone except Cundiff, of course.
