NFL Offers Mea Culpa On Week 14 Baltimore Ravens-Pittsburgh Steelers Game

Justin Rimpi
Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Zay Flowers (4) runs with the ball after making a catch in an NFL game.

NFL Executive VP of Football Operations Troy Vincent just revealed what Ravens fans have been screaming about since December—that controversial replay reversal on Isaiah Likely’s would-be touchdown against the Steelers? Yeah, they probably blew that one. And oh, by the way, they messed up another massive call in the same game. No biggie, right?

The Play That Changed Everything

Let’s rewind to Week 14. Ravens versus Steelers. AFC North on the line. Likely hauls in what looks like a go-ahead touchdown with under three minutes left in the fourth quarter. The officials on the field call it a score. Baltimore’s sideline erupts. Then the replay booth gets involved and overturns the call.

The reasoning? Something about Likely’s third step and the ball being extended. Even now, Vincent sounds like he’s not entirely sure what constitutes “a third act” when making a catch. That’s comforting, isn’t it? The guy in charge of football operations is still fuzzy on the rules.

“There was the Likely play that you go, that was interesting because of the third step, and they were talking about the ball extended out,” Vincent told the Washington Post’s Mark Maske.

The Domino Effect Nobody’s Talking About

Here’s where this gets absolutely brutal for Baltimore. If that touchdown stands, the Ravens likely win that game. They finish the season tied with Pittsburgh in the standings but win the tiebreaker based on division record. Baltimore takes the AFC North crown. The Steelers miss the playoffs entirely.

Instead, the Ravens finished 8-9, watched the postseason from home, and fired John Harbaugh. He’s now coaching the Giants. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh won the division and kept its season alive. One call. That’s all it took to flip the entire AFC North on its head.

But Wait, There’s More

As if one blown call wasn’t enough, Vincent also admitted the NFL botched another review in that same Ravens-Steelers matchup. Remember when Aaron Rodgers threw a pass that got batted back to him? Ravens Linebacker Teddye Buchanan wrestled the ball away, and the officials called it an interception on the field.

Replay overturned that one, too, ruling that Rodgers caught his own pass and had possession before Buchanan stripped it. The NFL now says that was wrong. The interception should have stood.

Lamar Jackson wasn’t having any of it when the news broke, joking on social media about the Ravens getting their “first offseason win ever.” Other Ravens players expressed their frustration more directly, questioning why it took the league over two months to acknowledge these mistakes.

The Volume Problem

Vincent offered an explanation that probably won’t make anyone feel better. He said the majority of questionable calls happened during the early Sunday window when most NFL games are happening simultaneously. Out of 171 replay reviews during the regular season, about five were mistakes they wish they could take back—and four of those occurred during the 1 p.m. ET slate.

“Just volume and you go, ‘Ah, if we had to do that one again, just looking at it,'” Vincent said.

So basically, the NFL’s replay system gets overwhelmed when multiple games happen at the same time. You know, like they do every single Sunday during the regular season. That’s been the schedule for decades, but apparently, it’s still too much to handle.

The NFL needs to staff up and ensure its replay officials can handle the workload without making game-altering mistakes. Having the Executive VP of Football Operations shrug and say “we were busy” isn’t exactly inspiring confidence.

What This Means Going Forward

Vincent’s comments suggest the NFL recognizes there’s a problem, which is a start. But acknowledging blown calls months after they’ve torpedoed a team’s season doesn’t fix anything. The Ravens can’t get back their playoff spot. Harbaugh can’t un-get fired from Baltimore.

The league has to do better. Period. Whether that means adding more replay officials, clarifying catch rules that apparently nobody fully understands, or improving communication protocols during high-volume windows, something has to change.

Because right now, we’ve got a situation where the league admits it cost a team a division title, a playoff berth, and potentially a head coach.

The Ravens Deserve Better Than “My Bad”

Baltimore has every right to be furious. This isn’t some meaningless Week 3 game where a bad call gets lost in the shuffle. These were season-defining moments that the league now admits it got wrong.

Jackson, Likely, and the entire Ravens organization did everything right on those plays. They made the catches, they fought for possession, they earned those calls on the field. Then the replay booth intervened and changed their entire season trajectory based on reviews that, oops, probably shouldn’t have been overturned.

The NFL can review all the tape it wants in February. It doesn’t change what happened in December. And it certainly doesn’t help the Ravens feel any better about watching the playoffs from their couches while the team that benefited from these mistakes advanced.

For a league that prides itself on “getting it right,” admitting you got it wrong months too late is cold comfort. The Ravens got robbed, the NFL knows it, and all we’re left with is a shrug and a promise to try harder next time.

Justin has been a sportswriter for nearly a decade. He has previously written for 247 Sports an Sports Illustrated.