Ravens’ John Harbaugh explains why Ravens go early to switch two points over Browns: ‘It’s pretty much a standard’
Raven made the decision midway through the 4th with a 24-22 loss to the Browns that interested many football fans.
After Latavius Murray scored a goal to cut the Browns’ lead to 24-15 with 8:56 left of the game, coach John Harbaugh decided to try to convert to two points. The attempt failed, and that kept Raven from making it a single-owner game.
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Harbaugh’s decision was clearly right regardless of the outcome. It was an analysis-based call that Harbaugh hadn’t thought of, as he explained in a post-game press conference.
“It’s pretty much a standard; not decisive,” Harbaugh said of two-point effort. “You do it at the right time because you’ll have to win a two-point conversion. So you understand if you hit it – or don’t hit it – early on where you started from; how much fortune you will need, and what you will have to do.
“If you wait until the final two-point switch, you won’t be able to finish the game. You’ve lost,” Harbaugh explained. “So you have to try it soon – we’re in a seven point game [and] We know where we stand. We don’t get it, we’re in a nine point game and we know we need two assets. “
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That logic makes perfect sense, as the Ravens benefit from the understanding that they need two possessions to win the game. That’s why when they started the penultimate lap with 5:25 on the clock, they had a sense of urgency as they moved the ball down the pitch. They know they need more time on the clock to generate potential game winning momentum.
Can Raven do the same with eight points off? Sure, but in that scenario – a game all by himself – they might not be as focused on keeping time on the clock. They will only focus on scoring and have a chance to end the game with two converted points, regardless of the time remaining. In fact, they may have left less time, as they didn’t want to give Cleveland a chance to make a winning game.
Harbaugh and Raven may not win, but they have a chance to win late. They managed with their second to last touch before recovering a kick on the spot with 1:17 remaining in the game. They eventually overturned the ball, but the team still had a chance to create a potential match-winning chance for Justin Tucker.
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It was the second time in as many weeks Harbaugh made a crucial conversion call to two points late in a loss. His first match was against the Steelers, where Raven was down by one point by 12 seconds with 12 seconds remaining. Harbaugh’s reasoning for that Week 13’s decision is slightly different from his interpretation of this week’s two-point effort.
“Trying to win the game right there. We had quite a few corners in at the time, so this was an opportunity to try to win the game right there.” he say.
Like what he did on Sunday, Harbaugh made the right decision in that contest. He just got the wrong result.
