MINNEAPOLIS — As great as Brett Favre was Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings quarterback was pretty sure he wasn’t good enough.
So sure that the Vikings were headed to their first defeat of the season, Favre couldn’t even bear to watch as Baltimore kicker Steve Hauschka lined up for a 44-yard field goal with two seconds to play.
Yet thanks to Favre, receiver Sidney Rice and a whole lot of luck, the Vikings are 6-0.
Favre’s 58-yard completion to Rice set up Ryan Longwell’s fourth field goal, and Hauschka’s kick was wide left at the final whistle, allowing the Vikings to win 33-31 and stay undefeated.
“I hate to say that I was not real confident because I’m confident in our team, period,” said Favre, who completed 21-of-29 passes for 278 yards and three touchdowns. “But offensively, they probably just felt like, ‘We could do whatever.’ “
The game turned from blowout to nail-biter in a sensational final period, with the Ravens erasing a 17-point deficit with 10 minutes to play.
Joe Flacco threw for 385 yards and two touchdowns for the Ravens (3-3), who scored twice on drives that totaled just 56 seconds to take a 31-30 lead with 3:37 to play.
But Hauschka pushed his field-goal try, and the Ravens’ once-impenetrable defense has shown plenty of cracks in their three-game losing streak.
“It’s tough for me,” Hauschka said. “I feel like I let them down. That’s something I have to live with.”
The Ravens told Matt Stover, who had 14 game-winning kicks during a 19-year career with the original Browns and Ravens, that they were going in another direction. Stover was picked up by Indianapolis this week.
“We didn’t lose that game because of Hauschka’s miss,” said Ravens running back Ray Rice, who had 117 yards receiving, 77 yards rushing and two touchdowns. “If we start fast and put points on the board, our defense starts fast, I think the game is a totally different outcome. But that’s what happens when you play against great teams.”
The Vikings took a 14-0 lead in the first nine minutes and led 27-10 when Visanthe Shiancoe caught his second TD of the game with 10:08 to play. But Flacco was just getting started.
He threw a 32-yard TD pass to Mark Clayton. After a field goal by Longwell, Flacco capped a 49-second drive with a 12-yard TD pass to Derrick Mason, and it was 30-24.
Ray Lewis and the Ravens’ proud defense came up with their first big stop all day, and Rice’s 33-yard run gave Baltimore its first lead seven seconds after it got the ball back.
The Ravens have lost three in a row by a combined 11 points.
“Every game has been a game of inches,” Lewis said. “But for me, being in this business for so long, it just speaks volumes for our team in the way we fight, regardless of the circumstance we’ve been put in.”
