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Cundiff told me he initially thought he was at fault, that he had looked at the scoreboard too early, before the down number had been changed. In fact, the Gillette Stadium scoreboard was off by a down. On Monday, Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs told ESPN that Ravens players thought the team had made a first down after receiver Anquan Boldin fumbled out of bounds on first-and-10 from the Patriots' 23-yard line. Instead, the ball was marked where Boldin had lost it, a yard short of a first down. On second and third downs—which the scoreboard said were first and second—Ravens threw unsuccessfully into the end zone. Ravens P.R. director Kevin Byrne told me—and Cundiff later learned—that team officials watched the All-22 video of the game on Monday and confirmed the scoreboard malfunction.
The Ravens, of course, could have made all this confusion moot by calling a timeout. Instead, coach John Harbaugh decided to let Cundiff run on the field and kick.
But back to the scoreboard. Was the error on the Gillette Stadium board an honest mistake made by a confused Patriots employee? Or were there darker forces at work here—a little Belichickian Machiavellianism to confuse the opposition with a Super Bowl berth on the line? Cundiff blames no one but himself for the miss. But he's relieved to know he wasn't seeing things on the stadium scoreboard.
The Ravens, of course, could have made all this confusion moot by calling a timeout. Instead, coach John Harbaugh decided to let Cundiff run on the field and kick.
But back to the scoreboard. Was the error on the Gillette Stadium board an honest mistake made by a confused Patriots employee? Or were there darker forces at work here—a little Belichickian Machiavellianism to confuse the opposition with a Super Bowl berth on the line? Cundiff blames no one but himself for the miss. But he's relieved to know he wasn't seeing things on the stadium scoreboard.
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