What are we doing here?
The 2025 NFL regular season is officially in the books after a wild day yesterday that saw some teams cement their spot in the playoffs while others were officially eliminated from the postseason.
The best game of the day came last night between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens, who were battling for first place in the AFC North and the final spot in the playoffs.
It was an instant classic between two bitter rivals, so naturally it would come down to the final seconds of the game. With just over 2 minutes left in the game, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson threw a 64 yard bomb to Zay Flowers for a touchdown to give the Ravens a 24-20 lead. But on the next possession, Steelers QB Aaron Rodgers answered with a 6-play, 65-yard drive of his own, capped off by a 26-yard touchdown pass to Calvin Austin, to once again put Pittsburgh back on top.
But kicker Chris Boswell missed the extra point, leaving the score at 26-24, meaning the Ravens had 55 seconds left to get into field goal range to win the game.
Well after a 26-yard pass to Isaiah Likely on 4th and 7 with just 21 seconds left in the game, the Ravens ran the clock down to 2 seconds to set up kicker Tyler Loop for a 44-yard field goal to not only win the game but to send Baltimore to the playoffs and the Steelers home for the season.
And then, he missed it…
Loop’s kick went wide right, sending Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers to the playoffs in what could very well be the veteran QB’s final season in the league.
The Ravens were stunned, with Loop hanging his head as teammates came to console him.
Loop was clearly devastated by the miss. After the game, Ravens coach John Harbaugh could be seen comforting the rookie kicker from Arizona:
Ravens fans, however, decided to take a different approach.
After the miss that kept the team out of the playoffs, the Baltimore faithful decided to let Loop know how they felt about him by flooding his Instagram with hateful comments…and they did it on his top pinned post, which happened to be a post he and his fiancée had made showcasing their engagement photos back in May:
I mean, the comments are just unhinged, and pretty disgusting:
“Hopefully shes cheating on you”
“your wife definitely regrets this decision”
“Hope you get divorced”
“When he was putting the ring on your finger did he accidentally miss it wide right?”
“Go get that divorce right now before you kick the ring away. Worst kicker in the league”
“You don’t deserve a wife”
“I hope she cheat tonight buddy”
“Still have time to cancel the wedding”
And that’s just a sample of the ones I could actually repeat.
The post racked up nearly 13,000 comments before the couple finally decided to lock the comments section, which is definitely the right move but seems to be too little, too late at this point…
And look, I’m a football fan too so I get the frustration. But at the end of the day, missing the playoffs can’t be blamed on one player or one missed field goal. The Ravens had plenty of opportunities to lock themselves in ahead of the final game (and the final play) and they didn’t do it, and were forced to put their entire playoff hopes on a rookie kicker.
I mean, they could have just won the game before the final 12 seconds and it wouldn’t have been an issue. There’s plenty of blame to go around…but maybe leave the couple’s engagement photos out of it.
