Jamison Hensley, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

John Harbaugh wins first replay challenge of season

The first successful replay challenge this season by Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh came at a critical time in Sunday's 21-7 win against the Tennessee Titans.

With the game tied at 7 in the second quarter, Harbaugh threw the red flag when the officials ruled that Titans tight end Delanie Walker had made a catch before rookie safety Terrence Brooks' hard hit.

If Harbaugh hadn't challenged, the Titans would've had a first down at their own 33-yard line (following the personal foul on Leon Washington). Instead, the Titans had to punt the ball.

Harbaugh credited Matt Weiss, the defensive quality control coach and linebackers assistant who is also his right-hand man in terms of studying the rules and challenges.

"I thought he did a great job of seeing that [play]," Harbaugh said. "He saw the bobble first on the first step, which gave us a chance to understand that it wasn’t a completed catch. Once we saw that, it was clear cut that it was going to be overturned. You never know, obviously, but we felt like that was pretty certainly going to be overturned."

Harbaugh had been unsuccessful on his first four challenges of the season, including the spot on Ben Roethlisberger's third-and-one quarterback sneak in Pittsburgh the previous week.

This had been Harbaugh's roughest season with replay challenges. In his first six seasons as the Ravens coach, he had challenged an NFL-best 28 plays reversed on a league-high 57 challenges. Last season, seven of his NFL-high 12 challenges were overturned in the Ravens' favor. That 58 percent success rate ranked 14th in the NFL.

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