Much to my surprise, penalties were scant during Sunday’s match up against the 49ers.
Of course this is probably because the 49ers offense focused on attacking Shareece Wright, who was too far away from his receiver to even attempt to hold him.
Regardless, there was once again a glaring penalty at the end of the game that could be considered very costly, and potentially a game changer, for the Ravens.
With 2:33 left in the game, the 49ers were faced with a 3rd and 7 from their own 39 1/2 yard line. Kaepernick was unable to find an open receiver, rolls to his left and eventually steps out of bonds. A flag was thrown on the play for defensive holding on #22 Jimmy Smith.Â
The play should have resulted in a 4th down with the 49ers punting, and the Ravens likely having 2 minutes left in the game to run (or jog very slowly, right KO?) downfield and put up 7 for the win.
Instead? Automatic first down for the 49ers, who managed to run another 80 seconds off the clock, force the Ravens to burn their final timeout, and inevitably walk away winners as Baltimore ran out of time to complete a comeback drive.
And like many of the other late game changing calls- this one deserves to be questioned.
First, let’s see the play in real-time.
I think the hold is not a question, with Jimmy grabbing ___. What I do question is the validity of the call based on where the hold took place.
According to the Referee’s Holy Gospel, here’s the requirements for defensive holding:
I don’t see it. It looks like Jimmy jammed his guy, who then turned in and continued his route. There’s a minor hesitation but there’s no fistful of jersey deterring Patten. If anything this is just incidental contact. By rule, this is not holding at all.
Perhaps looking at it from an illegal/legal contact standpoint will clarify this.
Now look at where Jimmy Smith holds Patten in comparison to the LOS.
Worst case scenario, say the LOS is the 39 and the foul occurred at the 42.
MATH 101: 42 -39 = 3
MATH 102: 3 < 5
Based on this, Jimmy is inside the 5-yard zone.
He also maintains contact with the defender, and never lets Patten behind him, therefore the contact itself is legal.
But just to be safe, let’s look at illegal contact within 5 yards.
Again, Jimmy maintained contact, never let Patten get behind him, and the original contact was face-to-face (the contact with his back was initiated as Patten turned in towards the middle of the field).
In short, the laundry should have never been thrown, whether it be for holding or any form of illegal contact.
Does this mean Baltimore would have been guaranteed victorous if not for this call? Absolutely not. Especially if Flacco still throws a Hail Mary to his shortest receiver in the endzone (looking at you Smitty), and definitely not if Monroe and Osemele continued to plod downfield like they were pulling the rest of the team behind them on a sled.
But it sure would have given them much more of a fighting chance at the end, and that’s all any team can ask for in a tight game.
