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Vick rallies Eagles for late 24-23 win over Ravens
This story is from BostonGlobe.com, the only place for complete digital access to the Globe.
| Eagles | 24 |
| Ravens | 23 |
PHILADELPHIA — Joe Flacco had the ball on target and a Ravens touchdown in Jacoby Jones’s grasp.
Flacco’s celebration was short lived.
Jones was whistled for offensive pass interference and the TD was wiped out. What should have been a 10-point lead turned into a field goal two plays later. The penalty and lost touchdown came back to cost Baltimore in a 24-23 loss to Philadelphia on Sunday. Eagles quarterback Michael Vick, who threw for 371 yards, scored the go-ahead TD on a 1-yard run with 1:55 left.
On Jones’s near TD, there was some initial confusion — Flacco said the official threw a bean bag instead of a penalty flag — but the call stood.
On replay, the call appeared to be the right one.
The Ravens, though, disagreed and are the latest team fed up with the maddeningly inconsistent calls made by replacement officials.
‘‘The fact we don’t have the normal guys out there is real crazy,’’ Flacco said.
Flacco’s overthrows and some questionable play-calling late in the game also cost the Ravens a 2-0 start.
Baltimore had a chance to at least get in position for the winning field goal by rookie Justin Tucker (field goals of 56, 51, and 48 yards) on the final drive but Flacco couldn’t get the offense within Tucker’s range. Flacco overthrew Ray Rice on fourth and 1 from the Ravens 46, and the Eagles ran out the clock.
Pressed on his play-calling, coach John Harbaugh conceded he could have called a draw. Rice refused to say he should have carried the ball.
‘‘I am not the play-caller,’’ Rice said. ‘‘I just do what I am asked to do when my name is called.’’
Late in the fourth, after losing their TD, the Ravens appeared to catch a break.
At the Ravens 3, Vick threw incomplete as he was being hit by Haloti Ngata, but the play was ruled a fumble and it was recovered by the Ravens. A replay overturned the call and Vick scored the winner on the next play.
Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis said the fumble should have stood.
‘‘The ball was already coming out, the ball was shaky,’’ he said. ‘‘He tried to push the ball. You can’t push the ball when the ball is fumbled. You go back to the Tuck Rule and all these different things. They protect the quarterback so much.”
Up next, the Ravens play the Patriots — a game they surely don’t want decided by mistakes in officiating.
‘‘For the conversation to be had on the sideline, ‘If the real refs were here, that call would have been made,’ that shouldn’t happen,’’ Lewis said. ‘‘But it is around the league.”![]()




