Just like old times, the Bears finally won again on the road, and Marcus Robinson was jumping and catching long touchdown passes. Real long. The Bears and Robinson were 1,700 miles apart.
More shocking than the Bears upsetting Denver on Sunday was Robinson catching four touchdown passes for the Baltimore Ravens in their 44-41 overtime comeback against the Seattle Seahawks.
Afterward, there were phone calls from the Bears’ plane to Robinson and congratulations all around. Robinson hadn’t had four touchdown catches in a season since 2000 with the Bears, when he had five. Signed by Baltimore last off-season as a free agent after the Bears gave up on his slow rehabilitation from knee surgery, Robinson had caught only nine passes all season, none for touchdowns.
But Anthony Wright, subbing for injured rookie Kyle Boller for the second week, reminded the Ravens and everybody else of what Robinson could do by hitting him seven times for 131 yards and scores of 13, 50, 25 and 9 yards.
The Ravens fell behind 17-3 at the half and discovered a long-lost part of their offense. Built around league-leading rusher Jamal Lewis, a rookie quarterback and stifling defense, the Ravens were 32nd in the league in passing yardage. Robinson was getting noticed mainly for drops.
“Anthony knew what I could do,” Robinson said Monday. “He always told me in practice, `Marcus, when I get in there, be ready.’ He got in there and I was ready.”
Until Sunday, Robinson had been labeled a has-been. But he pointed out that not only weren’t the Ravens passing much with Boller in the lineup, but most of the passes were aimed at the tight end.
“A lot of those times we were throwing the ball to Todd Heap,” Robinson said. “I might get one pass the whole game, and if it’s a jump ball situation and I don’t make that play, then it’s, `Oh, Marcus is not the type of player he was. He’s not making those plays.’ But when I was with Chicago in those big years, I was getting the passes consistently in the games. I didn’t catch every deep ball, but if we threw five of them, I caught at least three.”
Robinson and Wright, who overlapped for one season as starters at South Carolina, have an offensive philosophy more in tune with NFL fans and fantasy players than with NFL coordinators.
“It’s just having that quarterback have confidence in you just to throw the ball up and let you make a play and not worry about, `Where should I throw the ball? How should I put it?'” Robinson said. “Anthony knows it takes big plays down the field, even though you might not complete all of them. You still have to let the defense see if we can go deep.”
Extra overtime: As if overtime weren’t enough, the Ravens got an extra 35 seconds or so to make their comeback. The NFL admitted an officiating blunder Tuesday that may have helped Baltimore beat the Seahawks.
NFL supervisor of officials Mike Pereira said the 40-second clock and game clock should have been restarted after an officials’ conference over a penalty call with 58 seconds left in regulation. Seattle had the ball and led 41-38.
Because the clock wasn’t started, the Ravens had 39 seconds left instead of four or five when they got the ball back on downs at the Baltimore 33. They tied the game on Matt Stover’s field goal after a 44-yard pass-interference penalty.
The mistake came after the clock stopped with 58 seconds left when head linesman Ed Camp threw a flag. He thought offensive tackle Floyd Womack lined up as an ineligible receiver for Seattle on a second-down play on which Shaun Alexander gained 3 yards to the Baltimore 33.
The Ravens called their final timeout at that time, but the clock was stopped for the officials’ conference, in which referee Tom White determined Womack had reported as eligible. The flag was picked up.
Pereira said the conference negated Baltimore’s timeout, leaving the Ravens with one. But he said the officials erred in not restarting the clock after the conference.
If they had, Baltimore would have been forced to take its final timeout or let the clock run.
The clock remained stopped until the next play started: a run for no gain by Alexander on third-and-1. That allowed the Ravens to use their last timeout with 44 seconds left.
Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck carried for no gain on fourth-and-1, and the clock stopped automatically for a change of possession. Baltimore got the ball back with 39 seconds left and mounted the tying drive.
Curious Spurrier: Redskins coach Steve Spurrier conceded the playoffs were “very, very unrealistic” after falling to 4-7. Unlike Bears coach Dick Jauron, Spurrier sounded like he was tossing in the towel.
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“I apologize to the Redskins’ fans that our team has not achieved what I thought we were capable of this year,” he said. “If anybody deserves most of the blame, it should be me. Our assistant coaches are an excellent group.
“We’re going to play out the season with our best players and try to win every game we play.”
Spurrier said Patrick Ramsey, not Tim Hasselbeck, will start at quarterback if able.
Jaguars could switch: Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio may interrupt the rookie development of quarterback Byron Leftwich and turn to second-year prospect David Garrard.
“We’re not playing at a high level right now,” Del Rio said. “I think Byron’s got a bright future. But I think David Garrard is a promising young quarterback, and we’ll decide whether to give him a look. We’ve got to score more than three or 10 points.”