Sweating it out at deadline: An epic tale chronicling one man's account of the Dec. 3 Pats-Ravens Monday Night Football game

And then I heard Mike Tirico's voice bellowing from the small television located in the corner of the sports' office a.k.a. The Cave. Tirico, the play by play announcer for ESPN's Monday Night Football, was rather  animated when he delivered the following lines: (and I paraphrase) ... "And they stuff him. The Ravens stuff Tom Brady."

About halfway into writing the story for the day,  I looked up at the tiny TV and saw Ray Lewis jumping up and down like a lunatic, like the kind of lunatic that would kill somebody. Or like the kind of lunatic that would be aware of a murder, but not presenting the information to the authorities. Thus, the lunatic would be charged with obstruction of justice.

So ..... the first image I see is Lewis celebrating the Ravens' victory  over the once-undefeated New England Patriots (which, by the way, is my hometown team).

The last time I looked up at the game, the Pats trailed by a touchdown with 7 minutes left. I got caught up in work, and what felt like 10 seconds was all of a sudden the end of New England's pursuit of perfection.

You see, working on deadline is a rare form of work. A lot of the traditional "shift" jobs tend to drag. You're sitting there, staring at the clock, wondering why time is going by so slow. Not in the newspaper industry. You're trying to get work done as fast as possible while still trying to deliver a strong product. More or less, time flies. If it comes to 11:20 p.m., and I'm still about 20 minutes from being done, I'd love to freeze time.

Freeze time? At a job? Weird. I know.

Back to the game:

I jolted from my seat to get a closer look at the TV, to see if my ears and eyes were betraying me. Were the Patriots actually about to lose to the .... the .....the Baltimore Ra....no, sorry. I can't even type it. It's too heartbreaking to fathom ....

WAIT!! Are you kidding me? The Ravens, in all their boneheaded-ness, called a timeout before the ball was snapped to Brady. Defensive coordinator Rex Ryan, on the Baltimore sideline, crept up behind a line judge and called "the timeout heard round the world."

On a replayed fourth down, Brady scrambled 12 yards for the first down. I knew then. The Pats are going to win, improve to 12-0, and most likely become the first 19-0 team in NFL history.

Even with:

1) Brady's deflected pass that literally hung in midair for 12 minutes (I think time DID actually freeze)

2) The fourth-down pass interference call on the Ravens' Jamaine Winborne (even though it was on Bart Scott)

and 3) Kyle Bowler's completed Hail Mary to Mark Clayton on the Patriots 3-yard line as the game ended. ...

Even with all that craziness, the Pats won. All was right in the world.

So I went back to work and sent the pages to press just a few minutes before deadline, but literally like 2 or 3 minutes before deadline. It was a nail biter, but I got it done ... barely.

Sorta like that football team from New England.