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Did the Ravens win the Super Bowl on a bad call in the end zone?

San Francisco's Michael Crabtree, defended by Baltimore's Ed Reed and Jimmy Smith, can't get to a fourth-down pass in the end zone during the final minutes of Super Bowl XLVII.
(Al Bello / Getty Images)
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Michael Crabtree never had a chance to make a catch in the end zone on what turned out to be the San Francisco 49ers’ last play of Super Bowl XLVII, a 34-31 loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

Some think it was because quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s pass on fourth-and-goal with less than two minutes remaining in the game was too high. Others feel it was because of what should have been pass interference against the Ravens but wasn’t called.

Certainly members of the latter group are the more vocal, since a penalty would have given the 49ers four more chances for the go-ahead score while the no-call essentially ended their chances for a comeback victory.

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One of the most vocal of them all was San Francisco Coach Jim Harbaugh, who exploded on the sideline immediately after the play -- during which it looked like Baltimore’s Jimmy Smith grabbed Crabtree’s jersey to go along with some other contact between the players -- and still hadn’t gotten over it following the game.

“There’s no question in my mind that it was a pass interference, and hold on Crabtree on the last one,” Harbaugh said.

Later he added: “In my opinion, that series should have continued.”

Crabtree agreed with his coach’s assessment.

“It was a missed call,” he told Yahoo! Sports following the game. “”[The referee] missed two or three in the game but that was it right there, the Super Bowl was right there. ... I thought it was holding.”

Obviously, players in the Ravens locker room saw it differently as they celebrated Smith for making the game-saving play.

“I thought it was a good play and it was a play we had to make,” Smith told Yahoo! Sports. “That is what we do. Do your job.”

In the end it was a judgment call, and a tough one at that. Do you think the officials made the right one?

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