BALTIMORE — For many of the 108 million Americans who watched on television and the 71,024 patrons who crowded into the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, Super Bowl XLVII remains the “blackout game.”
The lights dimmed for 22 minutes and play stopped for 34, an unthinkable halt to one of the most reliable staples on this country’s entertainment calendar. It was a technological failure tailor-made to spawn conspiracy theories and invite jokes about Beyoncé exploding the grid with her luminescent halftime performance.
The Ravens and San Francisco 49ers also played a football game that night. Improbable heroes emerged. Tactical risks did and did not pay off. One team seemed unstoppable before the power failed, then the other bolted from the darkness — younger, swifter and certain it would seize the gleaming silver trophy coveted by both sides.
A decade after the Ravens held off surging San Francisco, 34-31, to capture the franchise’s second Super Bowl victory, many of the narratives from that night — the fraternal coaching showdown between John and Jim Harbaugh, Ray Lewis’ last ride, Colin Kaepernick’s sizzling brilliance in the second half — have faded. But it’s rewarding to revisit the game as just that: a thrilling, exhausting, twisting, turning contest between two worthy teams.
“It had a lot of rare plays,” said Ravens punter Sam Koch, who filled an unexpected role in the last minute. “Everybody played a part in that game.”
So let’s revisit 10 moments, one for each of the intervening years, that made the football drama on Feb. 3, 2013.
1. Joe Flacco finds Anquan Boldin in the end zone for a 13-yard touchdown, 10:42 first quarter.
Flacco wasted no time telling us this would be his night, the culmination of a four-week blitz of pristine quarterback play that still defines his career. He had outplayed Tom Brady two weeks earlier in Foxborough, Mass. The week before that, he had completed the most famous heave in Ravens history to beat Peyton Manning and the Broncos in frigid Denver.
After the Ravens sent the 49ers off the field three-and-out to start the game, Flacco completed his first pass for 8 yards to fullback Vonta Leach. Another strike, 20 yards to Torrey Smith, put the Ravens in the red zone, lickety-split. Then, Boldin shoved his way onto the stage.
The Ravens had traded for him three years earlier with visions of just such a moment. The 6-foot-1, 220-pound Boldin had never covered ground with the liquid brilliance of a Randy Moss (playing for the 49ers that night). He was a power wide receiver who would bully any defensive back foolish enough to challenge him for the ball. On this play, however, he was a technician, baiting 49ers linebacker NaVorro Bowman with a subtle shift of his body and accelerating right past him to catch Flacco’s pass in stride.
Though Boldin would make more spectacular catches later in the game — check out his leaping 30-yard grab to bail out a scrambling Flacco in the second quarter — his first produced the first score of the evening. Ravens fans still lament the trade that sent him to the 49ers a month after the Super Bowl. The franchise has never seen another wide receiver like him.
“He could go up and make tough, contested catches over just about anybody,” tight end Dennis Pitta said. “That’s what separated him, certainly in that Super Bowl run. He didn’t need to be wide-open. Joe could throw the ball up to him and trust that he was going to come down with it.”
2. Paul Kruger sacks Colin Kaepernick for a 10-yard loss, 4:26 first quarter
We tend to remember the first half as an all-out assault from the Ravens, but Kaepernick rapidly answered Flacco’s salvo by driving his 49ers to the Baltimore 8-yard line. On first-and-goal, the Ravens stonewalled running back Frank Gore for no gain. On second down, wide receiver Michael Crabtree dropped a potential touchdown pass from a scrambling Kaepernick. On third down, Kruger, the Ravens’ fourth-year outside linebacker, bolted around the outside shoulder of right tackle Anthony Davis before Kaepernick could even set his feet. The 10-yard loss forced San Francisco to settle for a 36-yard field goal.
This was not a night of signature moments for superstar defenders such as Lewis, Terrell Suggs and Haloti Ngata. The Ravens needed Kruger to play the game of his life, and he did, finishing with two sacks and parlaying his performance into a $41 million deal with the Cleveland Browns a month later.
3. Courtney Upshaw forces a fumble at the Baltimore 24-yard line, 12:04 second quarter
After the Ravens stalled on their next drive, Kaepernick moved the 49ers into scoring position again, relying on his fleet, powerful tight end Vernon Davis to catch short passes and outrun the Ravens’ older, slower linebackers. He handed to running back LaMichael James on first-and-10 from the Baltimore 24, and James scampered outside, initially evading Upshaw, the Ravens’ 6-foot-2, 272-pound outside linebacker.
Cornerback Corey Graham cut James off before he could break free, and Upshaw, having not quit on the play, dove in to punch the ball loose. Defensive tackle Arthur Jones fell on it. Instead of coughing up their lead, the Ravens headed in the other direction to build it.
Again, relatively unsung defenders — Upshaw was a rookie who would finish his six-year career with seven sacks, Graham had started a total of 10 games over his first five NFL seasons, Jones was a fifth-round pick — made the difference.
4. Flacco finds Dennis Pitta for 1-yard touchdown, 7:15 second quarter
Flacco did not waste the precious opportunity created by James’ fumble, marching the Ravens 75 yards on 10 plays to put them up 14-3. This turned into the tight end showcase. He hit Pitta for 9 yards on the fourth play of the drive, Ed Dickson for 23 yards to put the Ravens deep in San Francisco territory and Dickson for another 14 (with a face-mask penalty thrown in for good measure) to take them to the cusp of the end zone. After Ray Rice could not punch his way in from 4 yards, Flacco finished it, fittingly, with a quick strike to Pitta between two defenders.
This was the apex of Pitta’s career. He had become one of Flacco’s most trusted targets in his third year, finishing second on the team with seven touchdown catches. But he would play only one more full season thanks to a series of devastating hip injuries. His craft was on display with this short touchdown.
“I was supposed to be running a corner route to the back pylon,” Pitta recalled. “Their strong safety had really strong outside leverage, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get across him. So I came out and pushed him a couple steps and then pushed off of him and sat down inside of him. And Joe knew exactly what I was doing. He read my body language and without hesitation, he fired the ball into me. … We were just two guys playing ball, finding a way to get open that was outside the script.”
5. Ed Reed intercepts Kaepernick, 7:06 second quarter
The whole week had been a sweet homecoming for Reed, the Hall of Fame safety who grew up in nearby St. Rose, Louisiana. He hurt his knee early in the game, which would turn out to be his last with the Ravens. He was no longer the interception machine he had been just a few years earlier. But he was not going to play a Super Bowl in New Orleans without stealing a ball from the opposing quarterback.
In this case, Kaepernick tried a 25-yard fling to Moss but sailed it. Reed, playing a few yards behind the great wide receiver, just had to catch the ball.
“Watching him during that game, he was so locked in,” cornerback Jimmy Smith recalled.
Flacco, handed another golden chance, drove the Ravens to the San Francisco 14-yard line but missed Torrey Smith on third down. Justin Tucker lined up for a short field goal. Like a gambler feeling his oats at nearby Harrah’s Casino, Harbaugh called for a fake, the first in Super Bowl history. Tucker ran free toward the first-down marker, but Dickson could not finish a block on linebacker Patrick Willis, who cut the kicker off a yard short.
“Maybe if Tucker ran a little faster, it would have been beneficial,” Koch said wryly. “That’s really the only thing he hasn’t done in the NFL.”
Reed’s interception went for naught, but he would relish the rest of the evening, promising to lead a celebratory second-line parade through downtown New Orleans and sharing a moment of quiet, mutual appreciation with Harbaugh — their five-year relationship had been tempestuous — on the team bus.
6. Jacoby Jones returns the opening kickoff of the second half 108 yards for a touchdown, 15:00 third quarter
No Raven, not even Flacco, finished the season on a wilder roll than Jones, the blinding return ace and deep threat who had caught the “Mile High Miracle” heave three weeks earlier in Denver. As the clock ticked under two minutes in the first half against San Francisco, Flacco, continuing the gun-slinging posture that had emerged after Jim Caldwell replaced Cam Cameron at offensive coordinator, went for broke. He ran forward in the pocket and spotted Jones 5 yards beyond any 49er. Jones actually had to stop to catch the pass, but he twirled past one defensive back and sprinted around another to complete the 56-yard score, which put the Ravens up 21-3.
“That was like playing backyard football,” Jones said. “Catch me if you can.”
It was just his amuse-bouche. With the Ravens up 21-6 to start the second half, Jones caught David Aker’s kickoff near the back of the end zone. A coach would tell almost any returner to kneel in that situation. But Jones had just said to Harbaugh: “You’ve got to let me come out no matter what. This is a straight track meet for me.”
Sure enough, he took off, straight through the heart of San Francisco’s coverage unit. No one in red came particularly close. Once he reached the other end zone, Jones ripped off his version of Lewis’ “squirrel” dance. He was already envisioning how he would take the 49ers’ next punt to the house.
“It was over for them,” he said.
The New Orleans power grid had different ideas.
7. David Akers kicks a 34-yard field goal, 3:14 third quarter
“You can’t not remember the blackout and the effect it had on that game,” Pitta said. “When that momentum is killed, you have to restart everything. We were trying to hold on.”
It’s difficult to pick one play that sums up the counterattack Kaepernick and his teammates unleashed after the lights flickered back on in the Superdome. Was it the 31-yard touchdown pass to Michael Crabtree, who ran through Ravens safety Bernard Pollard? Maybe the 32-yard punt return from Ted Ginn Jr. that set up a two-play touchdown drive?
“That’s when the veterans on the sidelines started getting a little more edgy,” Smith remembered. “It did seem like it happened out of nowhere. We knew we needed to pick it up, but we couldn’t, really. … They definitely were the younger, faster team.”
The 49ers did their part, and the Ravens helped with a bit of imploding. First, Rice fumbled at the Baltimore 23. The Ravens stood firm, leaving the 49ers with a 39-yard field-goal attempt, which Akers pushed wide left. But Chykie Brown was flagged for running into the kicker, and Akers did not miss again. In three possessions and a bit more than seven minutes of game time, the 49ers had slashed their deficit from 22 to five.
“As far as the feel on the sideline?” Koch said. “We’d been through so many of those situations, so we don’t lose faith.”
8. Justin Tucker kicks 38-yard field goal, 4:23 fourth quarter
The Ravens stopped hemorrhaging with a 12-play, 72-yard drive that straddled the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth. They stalled at the 1-yard line and settled for a Tucker field goal to push their lead to 31-23. The 49ers hit right back with a five-play touchdown drive. Kaepernick would not connect with Moss on a 2-point attempt, leaving the Ravens with a 31-29 lead and the knowledge that they needed to keep scoring to hold off San Francisco.
The drive that followed was hardly their most impressive of the evening, but they ground more than five minutes off the clock, with Rice and Bernard Pierce combining for five carries and Flacco completing a crucial third-down strike to Boldin.
They put Tucker in position to widen their lead again. The undrafted rookie kicker was a crucial character in the 2012 team’s story. He had won the job from Billy Cundiff in training camp and had already shown his playoff mettle with a 47-yard kick to eliminate the Broncos in arctic Denver. He would make dozens of more difficult field goals in subsequent years. But this was the moment he’d always aimed for — a chance to provide his team with a winning margin in the Super Bowl.
Tucker split the uprights. “The rookie from Texas delivers the goods,” Jim Nantz said on the CBS broadcast.
9. Jimmy Smith stops Michael Crabtree on fourth down, 1:50 fourth quarter
But the 49ers were not buried. Of course they weren’t. Kaepernick ran 8 yards for a first down, then found Crabtree for another. Running back Frank Gore busted loose for 33 yards to put the 49ers in the red zone with almost three minutes left. After a 2-yard run on first-and-goal, it was time for Kaepernick to take his shots at glory.
He threw wide of Crabtree in the corner of the end zone on second down. On third down, he threw to Crabtree again and this time, Smith surged forward to knock the short pass loose. The Ravens’ 2011 first-round pick had started just two games in his second season because of a sports hernia, but Harbaugh had pulled him aside one day and said: “If you stick with this, by the end of the season, you’re going to make the play that’s going to win us the Super Bowl.”
“That’s not a lie,” Smith recalled. “I didn’t believe him.”
Smith’s size gave him a leg up on most receivers, and on fourth down, he lined up on the 6-1 Crabtree. They jousted for position as Kaepernick released his throw. “Usually, every receiver does the same thing; they want to push off, especially a big, strong guy like Crabtree,” Smith said. “We got into a little grabbing match right there. In my mind, I was trying to hold him up as long as possible. … I’d rather have them throw a flag than give up on a play like that.”
Jim Harbaugh would erupt at the lack of a pass-interference call, but Crabtree could not break free quickly enough, and the ball sailed long.
10. Sam Koch takes a safety on purpose, 0:12 fourth quarter
The Ravens could not quite run the clock out with four kneel downs, so Harbaugh employed one last bit of strategy when he asked Koch, the team’s veteran punter, to run around as long as he could on fourth down before taking a safety. He figured those precious seconds would deprive the 49ers a last chance at a Hail Mary.
Koch did not anticipate the call: “Typically, I don’t pay attention to the clock until it’s all zeros; I try to keep my head out of the emotion of how time plays into the game.”
But he saw it as one more task to execute, no big deal. “We’ll just say that with the Ravens, no stone is unturned,” he said. “Every special situation that could probably be thought of, we’re probably prepared for it.”
“In the moment, when you run it in practice, you’re like, ‘When is this ever going to happen?’” Pitta said. “And then of course, in the biggest game of your life, it comes up. And we were situationally ready.”
The ploy worked as designed. Koch, quietly one of the best all-around athletes on the team, killed eight seconds as he danced along the back of the end zone. He left the 49ers just four seconds to do what they could with his ensuing free kick. With Josh Bynes’ final tackle on Ginn, the Ravens finished painting their masterpiece of resilience and resourcefulness.
How did they do it after their AFC championship setback in Foxborough the previous year and after the humiliating losses that had nearly derailed their season in December? The 2012 Ravens were bonded as much by difficult times as by success, so the stress of the Super Bowl felt like nothing new.
“Of course, Peyton [Manning’s] Broncos were a good team, Brady’s Patriots, San Francisco with Kaepernick — they all were,” Lewis said. “But they just didn’t have what we had from the inside, out, where it was all about sacrifice for each other in that one year, that one stretch that we went on. We had a commitment to each other that was unbreakable, and that’s why I think that team prevailed.”
