Officials on the Gillette Stadium field Sunday threw a flag on Ravens head coach John Harbaugh for arguing a call (and exposing the youth of America to a new, eight-letter naughty word).
The league won't be throwing any flags for the team's complaints in the locker room afterward, however. ESPN's Adam Schefter reported via Twitter that "NFL executive Ray Anderson determined [Tuesday] that the Ravens will not be fined for criticizing officials after Sunday's loss at New England."
Ray Lewis was the most outspoken of the bunch, showing particular frustration with roughing-the-passer penalties called on the Ravens.
"Without totally going off the wall here, it’s embarrassing to the game," Lewis told a group of reporters. "You can’t do that. [Tom] Brady’s good enough to make a play. Let him make his own play. You can’t end the play like that, and then throw the flag. No, man. The embarrassing part is when he understands that, and he walks up to one of us and says, ‘Oh, that was a cheap one.’ That’s not football. And that’s the embarrassing part about it. Two great teams going at it, let them go at it. But you can’t stop drives like that, you can’t throw flags and say, ‘Oh, you touched the quarterback.’
"Put flags on them. Put a red buzzer on them, so if we touch them, they’re down. But you can’t do that, when a guy’s on the ground, it’s over.
"Both of the drives they got touchdowns on — personal fouls that kept the drives going. That’s embarrassing to our game."
Lewis, a 14-year NFL veteran, seemed to accept the fact that he would be hearing from the league.
"Fine me, do whatever you please," he said. "I’m not speaking against anybody. It’s embarrassing, for them to treat one person on the football field different than everybody else. That’s what’s embarrassing about this game. You cannot do that. You gotta let the game take care of itself like it just did.
"Did that win or lose the game? No. But it damn sure helped them get 14 points.
"People work too hard for that. And the embarrassing part about it is you see it constantly, constantly every week: emphasis on protecting the quarterback. We’re men, we put our pants on the same way. I got kids, just like Brady got kids. Every man has kids. Treat them with that same respect.
"It’s embarrassing for us to even keep a game going like that, give them momentum, after they go three and out. We stop them, see a flag for a personal foul and Brady’s laughing? That ain’t no personal foul if you’re still smiling. Bottom line.
"It’s embarrassing to see it. I can say it a thousand times. It’s embarrassing. Did it lose the game? Absolutely not. But it’s just embarrassing to go in there and play a game the way we did and you get that."
