When you think about the Baltimore Ravens & Pittsburgh Steelers rivalry you think about hard-nosed defense, Joe vs. Ben, obnoxious yellow dish rags and…Clete Blakeman?
If you don’t have Clete on the mind, perhaps it’s time you get on board.
Blakeman & Co. will be officiating this Thursday night’s matchup between the Ravens and Steelers, and by no means is this his first rodeo. In fact, this will be the 3rd year in a row Blakeman’s crew will oversee a Ravens-Steelers matchup, and Ravens fans should be hoping/praying/begging for similar results from those 2 games:
11/28/13- BAL 22, PIT 20
01/03/15- BAL 30, PIT 17
But before we get our hopes up, let’s take a closer look at this crew to see what we can expect in tomorrow night’s matchup.
Officiating Crew: Clete Blakeman (referee), Jeff Rice (umpire), Hugo Cruz (head linesman), Terry Brown (field judge), Steven Patrick (back judge), Joe Larrew (side judge), Carl Johnson (line judge).
Let’s get the Blakeman crew’s most egregious non-call against the Ravens out of the way, going back to the 2013 Thursday Night Football match against Pittsburgh. A play all too familiar to Ravens fans.
I am willing to give Blakeman’s crew a pass on this miss for 2 reasons:
1. In real time, that’s a hard call to make when you’re watching the return itself, and a call you can’t make after the play has concluded.
2. The Ravens still won.
But enough about that.
Let’s look at last year’s playoff matchup to see how Blakeman’s crew fared.
Overall, there were 10 penalties called in the game for a total of 128 yards. Taking a closer look, here’s how they breakdown:
I was pleasantly surprised to see that only 2 of the 10 penalties in this game were against Baltimore, and both of those penalties came on the Steelers’ opening drive (12 men on the field, unnecessary roughness). From that point on, Baltimore tightened up while Pittsburgh continued to pile up personal fouls (4 in the game).
The glaring absence of defensive holding (none) and defensive pass interference (1) in this game did leave me scratching my head. Both teams had anemic pass coverage all season (PFF ranked Baltimore & Pittsburgh 20th and 26th, respectively) and with some very talented receivers in the game, I would’ve expected more laundry on the field.
The knee-jerk assumption would be that Blakeman’s crew was/is inclined to let guys hand jab and fight for positioning while going downfield. Which is consistent with the results so far this season. Blakeman’s crew has thrown a total of 6 flags for defensive holding through 3 games, and not a single flag has been thrown for defensive pass interference.
Is it possible they’ll go 4 straight weeks without a DPI?
I highly doubt it (looking at you Rashaan Melvin!). But this should be great news for Ravens fans when we look at our so-called secondary that will be facing a dangerous Antonio Brown and an elusive Le’Veon Bell coming out of the backfield.
I’m not suggesting the defensive backs hold by any means, but the DB’s need to realize what they should be able to get away with in this game as opposed to other crews (like Walt Anderson’s crew who fell in love with DPI/holding calls last week if so much as a fingernail grazed the receiver).
The other noteworthy trend through the first 3 weeks of this season is the Blakeman crew’s affinity for throwing flags for personal fouls, primarily unnecessary roughness. In 3 games, they’ve tossed 5 flags for unnecessary roughness, 1 for roughing the kicker, and 3 others for various personal fouls. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but we’re talking 15 yard penalties, and in a crucial spot of a game, that can make a huge difference.
Again, for the sake of consistency, I went back to the Ravens-Steelers matchup in the playoffs last year to find this same crew dropped 4 flags for unnecessary roughness and 1 more for a facemask  (classified a personal foul), so clearly the trend is there.
In short- Timmy Jernigan needs to keep his composure once the ball is released by Vick.
Fast forward to last week’s game between Cleveland and Oakland, where Blakeman’s crew called 18 penalties for a total of 135 yards. Here’s the breakdown.
That seems steep, and realistically, it is. The 12 penalties called on Oakland were the most Blakeman’s crew had called on any single team since November of 2012 (St. Louis Rams). On average over Clete Blakeman’s last 20 games officiated, his crew averages 12.1 flags per game, with the home team (6.2) seeing slightly more flags than the road team (5.9).
In comparison, in the Ravens last 2 games they have amassed a total of 23 penalties for 225 yards.
Now I may not be a math whiz, but 11.5 penalties per game is just slightly higher than 5.9, is it not?
So what should we expect this week? More penalties in bulk for Baltimore, or a game with minimal whistles?
Based on what we know about this crew and the Ravens season to date, we should see less flags this week than we have seen in the past two games. Realistically, if you check back to the Ravens first game of the season against Denver, they were only flagged 3 times for 15 yards, and with a small sample size of only 3 weeks in this current season to go on, it’s just as easy to say Weeks 2 & 3 were anomalies, with Week 1 closer to the norm.
Here’s to hoping the only yellow laundry in this game is waving above the heads of the fans in the seats.
At least for the first few drives until the Ravens can convert those flags to tissues.
