Ravens coach John Harbaugh continued to stand by his decision to attempt an onside kick late in the fourth quarter of Monday night’s 12-7 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
After quarterback Joe Flacco had connected with wide receiver Anquan Boldin on a 5-yard touchdown strike to make the score 9-7 with 2:02 remaining in the contest, Harbaugh called for an onside kick. But Billy Cundiff’s kick did not go past 10 yards, giving the Jaguars the ball at the Ravens’ 37-yard line. Four plays and four yards later, kicker Josh Scobee drilled his fourth field goal, a 51-yarder.
On Tuesday, Harbaugh said he would not have changed his mind if given another chance.
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“Now that I’ve had some time to think about it, I’m even more sure that it was the right thing,” he said. “And I think you can go both ways on it, but we had a chance to do a probability study – that’s another thing that [head coach’s assistant] Matt Weiss does – on the probabilities for kicking an onside kick, and that’s given a 21 percent onside kick recovery rate. And that’s assuming that’s [having Cundiff kick off would result in] a touchback, so that they get the two-minute warning, which – if I’m them – I’m bringing the ball out unless it’s kicked out of the end zone. I think it’s fair to say that you can do it either way. I felt strongly about the onside kick, and the main reason was, I thought we were going to get it. So you can take that 21 percent and make it 50 percent-plus in my mind because I liked our scheme on that play. And if you look at the play, we had them outnumbered at the point of attack. If that ball goes 10 yards – which is not asking too much – then we’re going to recover that ball. Now we’ve got the ball with two minutes plus two timeouts plus a two-minute warning to go from the 45 or 50 into close field-goal range and give us the best chance to make a kick and win the game. I thought about it, I felt strongly about it then, and I feel even more strongly about it now, that it gave us the best chance to win. But I also acknowledge that you can definitely make the case the other way. If everything works out perfectly the other way, you have a chance to win the other way, too.”