Ravens crowned Super Bowl XLVII Champions

A power outage in the nation’s biggest sporting event served as an interesting intermission to the plot line of Super Bowl XLVII and for the first time in franchise history, the San Francisco 49ers have lost in the Super Bowl and Jim Harbaugh’s Baltimore Ravens are crowned Super Bowl XLVII Champions over his younger brother Jim Harbaugh’s talented 49er squad.

The game proved to be an eventful one as the first fake field goal in Super Bowl History, an intentional safety on a punt and a record kickoff return highlighted the special teams show that Baltimore put on during the contest.

All-time great Ray Lewis has been sent off into retirement as a two-time champion and emphatically stamps the end of his Hall of Fame career and a new chapter to the Joe Flacco-led Ravens squad. Flacco received the Super Bowl MVP accolade after the game after throwing for 287 yards and three touchdowns to cap off an 11-0 TD to interception postseason for the Delaware alumni. 

Ravens coach John Harbaugh gambled in the second quarter, already up 14-3 with just over 3 minutes left in the second quarter, by electing to go for a fake field goal on 4th and 9 deep in 49ers territory. This move showcased the creativity of Baltimore’s game plan going into the biggest game of the year.

After an explosive first half by Baltimore and going up  21-6 at halftime, the Ravens’ Jacoby Jones returned a Super Bowl record 108-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to begin the second half and put the Ravens up 28-6. Moments later, half of the lights in the Superdome shut off and the game was delayed for 34 minutes while the players and coaches waited for the issue to be resolved. The break proved to help San Francisco and it seemed that the momentum that Baltimore had retained was washed away by the power outage. 

The 49ers ran off 17 unanswered points after the delay and pulled within five at 28-23 with 3:10 left in the third quarter, which was capped off by a David Akers 34-yard field goal. San Francisco, who had trouble against the Ravens defense in the first half, finally converted on big plays --something they couldn’t do to start the contest.

Although their offensive productivity increased mightily, Kaepernick and the 49ers had a lot of trouble on third downs, going 2-for-9 in the contest, compared the 9-for-16 the Baltimore Ravens put up for the game.

Colin Kaepernick’s inexperience played a larger factor in this year’s Super Bowl than most would have anticipated. The 49ers burned two critical timeouts in the second  half to help the Ravens ice the game with their last possession. 

After the gamble that Ravens coach John Harbaugh took with the fake field goal in the second quarter, big brother Harbaugh also played a tactical ploy at the end of the game with 12 seconds left on his own eight. He instructed his punter to take a safety instead of punting the ball off the opposition, burning eight valuable seconds off the clock and only allowing San Francisco to return a punt kickoff which proved to be the 49ers last chance at the win. The kickoff was returned to the 40 yard line before being fumbled out of bounds with time expired. 

Ray Lewis, who could be seen on the sidelines weeping in his teammates’ arms, was once again crowned champion of the world, and the Ravens are Super Bowl champtions for the second time in their franchise’s history.

jboyd@thepinelog.com