Playing with a heavy heart after losing his brother, Ravens wide receiver Torrey Smith was excellent for Baltimore, catching two touchdowns as they defeated the New England Patriots 31-30 on Sunday night.
Smith was playing in the game less than 24 hours after finding out his younger brother had died in a motorcycle accident. He responded by catching six balls for 127 yards and two scores.
"It was tough. I didn't know until 4 o'clock if I was going to play," Smith told the Associated Press. "I only had like an hour of sleep. Emotionally, I didn't know how I was going to hold up."
The Ravens were also able to erase the memories of last January when the two teams faced off in the AFC Championship game. Billy Cundiff missed a game-tying field goal in that game to send the Ravens home, but this time Baltimore was able to convert.
Justin Tucker, who took Cundiff's job in training camp, drilled a 27-yard field goal as time expired to give the Ravens the win.
The game was marred by some shoddy penalties and controversial calls by the referees, including a defensive pass interference that set up the kick. The referees threw a flag on Patriots cornerback Devin McCourty for contact with receiver Jacoby Jones, but the replay showed there was little or no contact between the two.
"I'm not going to comment on that," Belichick said. "You saw the game. What did we have, 30 penalties called in that game?"
Overall there were 24 penalties in the game, including 14 on the Ravens for over 130 yards.
Baltimore won its 12th straight home game and the entire team was emotional due to Smith, and was there to support him.
Coach John Harbaugh said: "If you're around athletics, I guess you feel like it's an escape, an opportunity to do what he does. He's been doing it his whole life; he knows what to do. When Torrey said he wanted to play, the decision was finished. He was going to get the opportunity to play, he deserved that."
Quarterback Joe Flacco was excellent for the Ravens, throwing for three touchdowns and 382 yards.
New England had the lead early, going up 13-0, but allowed the Ravens to take it back after Flacco threw touchdowns to Smith and tight end Dennis Pitta.
Flacco drove the Ravens down the field 82 yards on the scoring drive to Smith and then drive 92 yards on the touchdown to Pitta.
"When I came here, the more I was grounded. The more comfortable I began to feel," Smith said. "I'm glad I came back up here. It helped me out a lot."
But Tom Brady answered back, adding a touchdown pass to Julian Edelman with 2 seconds left in the first half to go up 20-14. New England had a lead of 30-21 in the fourth quarter, but the Patriots couldn't hold it up.
"We didn't do what we needed to do to help our offense tonight," Patriots defensive tackle Vince Wilfork said. "And it (stinks), because coming into the game, I think we had a pretty good idea of how we wanted to play it. First quarter, it showed. It seems after that, we really couldn't get off the field. Offense played their tails off and we just left them out to dry. We can't do that."
Wes Welker had a great game for New England after only catching eight balls through two games. He had eight catches for 142 yards and fellow receiver Brandon Lloyd added nine passes for 108 yards.
The Patriots had been 6-0 against the Ravens in the regular season before losing Sunday.
The Ravens only punted three times in the game and running back Ray Rice added 101 yards and touchdown on 20 carries.
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