Super Bowl Controversy: Jimmy Smith Insists Michael Crabtree Ran Into Him
By Josh Hill
The most talked about play in the Super Bowl remains one of the final plays where Baltimore Ravens cornerback Jimmy Smith appeared to have interfered with San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree in the endzone on a fateful fourth-and-goal situation. The isle remains divided, as Ravens fans obviously still contest that any contact was incidental while everyone else in the world believes Smith illegally interfered with Crabtree.
Not surprisingly, Jimmy Smith thinks that the right call was made, and even insinuated that if there had been a penalty it should have been on Crabtree and not him.
“He ran directly into me,” Smith said in an interview on ESPN 102.3 in Denver, via SportsRadioInterviews.com. “I had inside leverage. He ran into me. So once he did that and tried to push off . . . I had to make contact. That was on him. He didn’t run a fade; he didn’t get away. He could have just ran and pivoted out or faded away from the ball, but he didn’t. He ran into me so he could make contact to push off to create separation, and I didn’t let that happen.”
Smith was asked if he thought he felt he was guilty of a hold and should have been flagged. Beyond this being a stupid question to ask a person who obviously isn’t going to say yeah I held him, Smith reiterated that if there has to be a guilty party in this whole controversy, it’s Crabtree.
"“If you look at the play closely, you see him kind of push off of my helmet immediately. So as a DB, what do you do? … If he’s pushing off you gotta make sure you got some type of grip so he doesn’t push off of you. If I never touch him at all and he catches the ball, then it’d be San Francisco winning and why didn’t Jimmy make that play? So I’m happy with the way it turned out.”"
The play will forever divide fans on both isles of the debate. Jim Harbaugh has gone on record numerous times citing the incident, saying recently a flag should be thrown no matter if it’s the first five seconds of the Super Bowl or the last. Even thinking for a moment that Smith is going to admit he was wrong is just asinine to suggest.
The tape doesn’t lie, but interpretations do. How you view the outcome of the play relies solely on what lens of fandom you’re viewing it through.