New England Patriots head to Super Bowl with 23-20 victory over Baltimore Ravens – NFL Recap
Despite a poor show by Tom Brady, the New England Patriots surged past Baltimore Ravens, 23-20, as a last ditch failed field goal attempt by Billy Cundiff, with 11 seconds left in the game, denied Ravens an access to overtime.
With Patriots’ quarterback, Brady, not up to the mark in the game, it would have been a strong possibility that Ravens could have changed the game's result in overtime.
Ravens’ kicker, Billy Cundiff sure looked shocked as he missed the 32-yard field goal.
"It's a kick I've kicked probably a thousand times in my career," Cundiff said. "I went out there and didn't convert. That's the way things go."
So, there was nothing the Ravens could do about it in the end as the crowds cheered their team’s victory.
The game had been a closely fought one from the very beginning with both the quarterbacks completing 22 of 36 passes but Ravens' Joe Flacco was far ahead in comparison to Brady as he threw two touchdown passes with just one interception
while Brady had two interceptions and failed to throw any touchdown pass. Still, Flacco could not lead his team into the Super Bowl event.
"I don't know if I ever will prove anything," he said. "I just play the same way. We lost; someone has to. But we laid it all out on the field."
However, a touchdown by Brady in the final quarter of the game helped the Patriots take the lead at a critical time with just eleven and a half minutes remaining which proved to be the decisive factor in the game.
The first quarter of the game did not bring much on the score board as only one 29-yard field goal was scored by Stephen Gostkowski to help the Patriots take the lead.
The Ravens struck back with a 20-yard field goal by Billy Cundiff in the second quarter. The Patriots hit back again just four minutes later as BenJarvus Green-Ellis ran 7-yards to score a touchdown. However, the Ravens were not
to be left far behind as Flacco threw a 6-yard touchdown pass to Dennis Pitta to equal the score again but the Patriots took the lead once again before the second quarter had ended with the help of a 35-yard field goal by Gostkowski.
Gostkowski then managed his third field goal of 24 yards in the third quarter and Flacco threw his second touchdown pass of 29-yards to Torrey Smith to engineer a lead over the Patriots. Cundiff helped extend the lead to 20-16
with his 39-yard field goal.
Brady who threw for 239 yards in the game made everyone overlook his failure for failing to throw a touchdown pass by scoring a touchdown in the fourth quarter of the game that helped the Patriots surge ahead to 23-20.
It was the first time in 36 games that Brady had failed to throw a single touchdown pass in a game and he admitted his shortcomings saying that the defence had saved the game for the Patriots.
"I'm going to try to go out and do a better job in a couple of weeks, but I'm proud of this team, my teammates." Brady said.
The Ravens failed to capitalize on the weaker defence of the Patriots which ranks at 31st in National Football League (NFL), but proved to be a lot better than that in the game. While the Patriots on the other hand, were pretty
much able to rip through a better defence of the Ravens.
The Patriots had the Ravens offense pretty much contained as they restricted Ray Rice to 67 yards on 21 carries.
The Patriots having won ten straight games now get ready to face the New York Giants in their seventh Super Bowl game.
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