Published: October 07, 2009 12:15 am      

Not too close

Had the strangest feeling on Sunday while watching the Ravens-Patriots game. Look, I would never say I felt like a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, but I can tell you I experienced quite a bit of empathy for all of their moaning and whining through the years about the Patriots and Tom Brady, because the personal-foul penalties that seemed to be called on the Ravens like clockwork after they had seemingly stopped the Patriots on a third down, really took an edge off of what was an otherwise tremendous NFL game.

I’ve always gotten a chuckle when my friends who are Steelers fans, particularly Tim Martin of GO 106 FM’s Martin in the Morning Show, bark and howl about Patriots coach Bill Belichick and, paticularly, quarterback Brady. I tell them they don’t wear jealousy very well, and when it comes to officiating, they have to remember, the best teams in the NFL receive the best calls from the officials whether that is the intention or not. It’s always been that way, and it will remain that way; and it applies to the Steelers as well when they’re going good, as any non-Steelers fan will tell you.

Fans of the team this directly involves, of course, are unable to see this. That’s why only a Steelers fan cannot see that Hines Ward clearly gets away with murder; although I’m here to tell you I’ve never seen Ben Roethlisberger come close to getting the roughing calls that Brady got last Sunday. And if he ever got one like the second one that Brady openly campaigned for and received, I believe Roethlisberger would ride a motorcycle without a helmet again before he would openly laugh the way Brady did once he got it.

Every NFL fan, though, is paranoid about his or her team getting the short end of the stick from the officials, and while I felt so pedestrian on Sunday as I complained about the Ravens being flagged for things that were not being called on the Patriots when they did them, I felt, and feel, somewhat vindicated that this Pampered Patriots dialogue began as soon as late Sunday afternoon and continues to be a hot topic of discussion.

I think everybody out here understands the spirit of the roughing-the-passer rules, and for the most part accepts them. You want to keep the quarterbacks healthy. It’s just good business. But when you see Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco get much worse than Brady got in the same game, and only receive one call in at least five instances; and when you see Raiders quarterback JaMarcus Russell get out-and-out mugged later in the day and not receive a roughing call, yes, you’re left with no choice than to feel Brady does receive kid-gloves treatment when he lobbies for and receives a roughing call on a play that he’s not even touched.

And then laughs.

Nor is it lost that these calls came against the Ravens, a team annually at the top of the league in personal-foul penalties. But, see, Jarrett Johnson, the chief knucklehead on the Ravens defense, wasn’t flagged once on Sunday, so the feeling here is it all had more to do with the Patriots than the Ravens.

Having said all of that, the Patriots’ 27-21 victory over the Ravens produced one of the best games of the young NFL season. It was a battle of conference heavyweights and had a little bit of everything. And, no, I don’t believe the barking you hear out of Baltimore is trying to suggest the Ravens were cheated out of winning the game. Heck, if Mark Clayton had tried to catch that last pass at the New England six with his hands rather than his body (the only good body-catcher in the NFL I can ever remember was the Redskins’ Gary Clark, and he had his share of drops too), the Ravens could have still won the game.

Sure, Ravens fans were frustrated on Sunday, but had to have come away from that game feeling pretty good about things. They shouldn’t take anything for granted this week, though, because my preseason pick for NFL Pain In The Arse Team was the Cincinnati Bengals, and now that Carson Palmer appears to be completely healthy again, they’re likely to become much more than a mere pain this season.

One good thing. You never hear a Steelers fan complain about the Bengals. So Ravens fans won’t have to worry about empathizing with the Pittsburghs anymore.

Unless, of course, the Ravens and the Patriots meet again.

Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.