The St. Louis Rams and Baltimore Ravens played one of the ugliest games of football between any two teams this season on Sunday. They combined for six turnovers on the day -- the Ravens throwing two interceptions and the Rams losing four (!) fumbles.
An ugly game got the dreary ending it deserved.
After the Ravens tied the game, 13-13, on a field goal with 3:49 to play, the two teams traded off blowing game-winning opportunities. First, Rams kicker Greg Zuerlein pushed a 52-yard field goal attempt wide right with 1:41 to play. Then Justin Tucker -- one of the most accurate kickers in NFL history -- also pushed a 51-yard attempt to the right.
The miss was apparently so out of character for Tucker that the Ravens mascot assumed the ball went through the uprights and celebrated the miss.
Ravens mascot all about that tank lol pic.twitter.com/OnejaBM4XR
— Darnell Mayberry (@DarnellMayberry) November 22, 2015
The miss gave the ball back to the Rams at their own 41-yard line. They didn't have to go far to get in field goal range, and the worst case scenario should have been overtime, barring a disaster.
Disaster happened.
Case Keenum was sacked on second down, and appeared to suffer a head injury (it was ruled a concussion).
The Rams and an NFL injury spotter seemingly felt that Keenum was OK to stay in the game. He fumbled the ball two plays later, giving the ball back to the Ravens who needed to go just 12 yards to set up Tucker one more time. With a second chance, his 47-yard attempt was true, giving the Ravens a 16-13 win as the clock expired and sparing us all from watching more of an awful game.
To make things worse, Ravens head coach John Harbaugh announced that quarterback Joe Flacco would miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL, thus capping the game as perhaps the worst of the year.
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