New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh and his team should go "read the rulebook." Brady's remark came after hearing Harbaugh had complained about a play ran by New England in the third quarter of Saturday's NFL playoff win.
Down 14 points in the third quarter, Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels called a play that lined up just four offensive lineman and had a normally-eligible receiver declare himself ineligible. The play left the Ravens defense confused over who to cover, and it gave the Patriots a fresh set of downs after Harbaugh drew an unsportsmanlike penalty for running onto the field and screaming at the referees in protest.
Harbaugh later called the play a "substitution trick" that was designed to deceive opponents.
"We wanted an opportunity to be able to ID who the eligible players were," Harbaugh said, via ESPN. "What [the Patriots] were doing was they announce the ineligible player and then Tom [Brady] would take them to the line right away and snap the ball before we had a chance to figure out who was lined up where. That was the deception part of it. It was clearly deception.
"So the officials told me after that they would give us the opportunity to do that, which they probably should've done during that series but they didn't really understand what was happening. That's why I had to take the penalty, to get their attention so they would understand what was going on because they didn't understand what was going on. ... That's why guys were open, because we didn't ID where the eligible receivers were at."
The drive ultimately led to a 5-yard touchdown pass to tight end Rob Gronkowski. When Brady heard of Harbaugh's comments, the future Hall of Fame signal caller fired back.
"Maybe those guys gotta study the rulebook and figure it out," he said. "We obviously knew what we were doing and we made some pretty important plays. It was a real good weapon for us."