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For about five seconds, it looked like Lardarius Webb had given the Ravens the lead tonight with six minutes to go in the fourth quarter.
With the Ravens trailing by three, Webb caught a punt from the Steelers' Jeremy Kapinos at the Baltimore 45-yard line, spun away from a tackler and danced his way down the field, avoiding black jerseys and gliding into the end zone.
It appeared that the second-year cornerback had given the Ravens the big play that they needed to pick themselves up off the canvas and possibly earn the win over their arch-rivals. Then, we saw the yellow flag on the field.
Holding, No. 11 on the receiving team.
Marcus Smith was flagged for a hold on Steelers safety Will Allen, a questionable call which took the touchdown off the board and backed the Ravens up to the Pittsburgh 29. They ended up being forced to kick a game-tying field goal, and as we're well aware, that wasn't enough.
After the game, an emotional Smith discussed the play and the penalty call with tears starting to form in the corner of his eyes.
"I saw 26 (Allen) was the only man left," Smith said. "I lock up, try and drive my feet, try and keep my hands inside, work the technique we work every day in practice, everything we've been doing since OTAs. I thought it was clean. The referee throws a flag. I think it's a clean block, I'm talking trash, thinking it's effective, thinking we've run the kick back, and there's a flag on the field.
"I didn't think it was on me. I thought, 'No way it could be on me.' That situation in the game, you never want to be that guy for any reason. You want to be the guy making the play on the other side."
While he didn't believe he had committed a penalty, Smith still owned up to the mistake.
"After the play happened, honestly, I was disgusted in myself and at the play in general," Smith said. "We can't have that, period. No ifs ands or buts about it. At that point in the game, everything's on the line. Everything's magnified times 10. And those are the types of plays we have to win to become that team and come over that hump."
Webb's moment of elation quickly turned into disappointment when he heard referee Jeff Triplette announcing the hold over the Heinz Field sound system. He could have gone down as posting one of the biggest plays in team history. Instead, it will show up only as a 36-yard punt return which set up a now-meaningless field goal.
"They made the call," Webb said. "It could have went either way. We just have to move on from it, and keep going. We came up short. It could have probably been a big play, but we have to move on."
For his part, head coach John Harbaugh said he didn't see the play in question, so he chose not to comment on it. But he did ask whether reporters had seen the hold.
I responded that, to me, it looked like a borderline call.
"OK," Harbaugh said knowingly, as he turned to answer the next question.
