NFL Agrees With Titans: Ravens Should've Been Called for Delay of Game

Great news, Titans fans: got some closure for you. Mike Pereira, the NFL head of officials, agrees that, yes, the Ravens probably should've been called for delay of game during that last, fateful drive that would eventually set up Matt Stover's game-winning field goal.

Quick refresher for the one person who has no idea what I'm talking about: with the score tied 10-10, 2:52 to go in the fourth quarter, and the Ravens facing a third and 2, quarterback Joe Flacco didn't take the snap until after the play clock hit "00."

By itself, that's not necessarily a penalty; as Snyder pointed out at the time, "if the clock strikes zero and the snap is eminent, [the officials] will let it happen." We see it all the time, but when it's a playoff game, and on the play in question, Flacco completes a 23-yard pass to Todd Heap. And six plays later, Baltimore takes the lead, I can sorta understand all the mock outrage.

Pereira is here to assuage those concerns, however. (You can see the entire segment here.)

While he agreed there's always a delay on such calls, he said in this case it was "a little long." "It wasn't as long as the three seconds that was portrayed when you slow it down in slow motion. When you bring it back in real time I think I timed it at about .65 seconds,'' Pereira said. "The question is, how long is a little long? It is probably a little long.''

There you go. Feel better? No? Well, how about this: the Titans got away with a safety, so they still should've lost, just by one point instead of three. There's your silver lining. And before you start waving your arms about Flacco running out the back of the end zone, just know that he didn't. (Again, see the video.)

So while it's easy to blame all this on the officials, a couple things worth mentioning: Flacco completed a 23-yard pass on the play in question; it's not like the Ravens gained two-and-a-half yards and just eked out a first down. Take away five yards after the fact and it's still a 18-yard gain. More than that, though, what's the strategic advantage to having an extra half-second to snap the ball, particularly since the offensive line was set?

By the letter of the rulebook it's a penalty. But unlike, say, 12 men on the field, there's no inherent benefit to the play starting 0.65 seconds late. Luckily, it didn't matter.