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Over at NFL.com, their writers have put together a list of what they felt were the best NFL games of the 2013 season. It shouldn't be terribly surprising that none of the Minnesota Vikings games from this past season were on the list, as NFL.com does their best to ignore the Vikings on a regular basis, but I'm not quite sure how they managed to miss a pretty big one.
Not a whole lot was expected when the Vikings traveled to Charm City to take on the Baltimore Ravens in Week 14, other than the fact that there would likely be some quality blooper material thanks to the blizzard that was hammering the entire East Coast at the time. And, with the score sitting at 12-7 in favor of the Vikings will just over two minutes remaining, it appeared that the lowered expectations had been met.
And then, all hell broke loose in a way the National Football League has never seen before.
To recap:
-With 2:05 left, the Ravens scored on a 1-yard touchdown bass from Joe Flacco to Dennis Pitta and added a two-point conversion to make the score 15-12, Baltimore.
-Minnesota then proceeded to move the ball 68 yards in just two plays. . .a 27-yard pass to Jerome Simpson and a 41-yard touchdown run by Toby Gerhart to make the score 19-15.
-Jacoby Jones then took the ensuing kickoff and returned it 77 yards for a touchdown, and Baltimore added the extra point to make it 22-19.
-The Vikings took over again, and on 3rd-and-10 from the Minnesota 21, Cordarrelle Patterson happened to make the score 26-22 in favor of the Vikings.
-Baltimore took over for one last drive, and after what appeared to be a game-ending interception by Andrew Sendejo that was negated by pass interference, the Ravens capped a 5-play, 80-yard drive with a 9-yard touchdown pass from Flacco to Marlon Brown to provide the final score of 29-26.
I find it hard to believe that this wasn't one of the 20 best games of 2013. Frankly, I have a hard time believing that it wasn't one of the five or ten best games of 2013. The game set the following all-time NFL records, according to ESPN's Stats and Information Department.
The Ravens-Vikings game was the first in NFL history with five go-ahead touchdowns in the final 2 minutes, 30 seconds of the fourth quarter.
The five touchdowns in 2 minutes, 5 seconds were the fastest that five touchdowns have been scored in the last 50 seasons by more than 3½ minutes.
It was the first game in NFL history with six lead changes in the fourth quarter.
The 36 combined points were the most in the final two and a half minutes of a game over the last 50 years. (The previous high was 24 points, by the Kansas City Chiefs and Tennessee Titans in 2004.)
Seriously, that third one alone should have gotten this on the list. And we can't use the old "well, these teams weren't very good" excuse. . .a game between the New York Jets and the Atlanta Falcons appears on the list, and neither of those teams were very good last year, either.
Even though our favorite team lost that game, it was still one of the best games of football I watched all season. Kind of strange that it missed the list, in my opinion.