Forget that one game official actually raised his hands to signify a score. Or that two others raced in from the side to dispute that interpretation. Never mind that by the time the zebras had concluded their obligatory on-field huddle, the potential game-winning touchdown by the Tennessee Titans turned into a pumpkin on its midnight cue.

In hindsight, while it took the requisite summit council to sort out the rules, the officials got things right on Monday night/Tuesday morning at the end of the Baltimore Ravens' 16-10 win at Adelphia Coliseum.

	Baltimore's defense stopped Titans quarterback Steve McNair on a sneak from inside the 1-yard line to end the game.

You folks in Nashville think that's as tough to swallow as undercooked grits? Hey, I've spent a career bashing the refs, and my fingers were all but paralyzed over the computer keyboard as I began to type the words endorsing the officials' call.

It was, as Titans offensive left tackle Brad Hopkins observed, a "crappy way" to lose a game. But think big-picture here, all you would-be Cumberland River rioters. Consider, for a moment, the potential aftermath of manure that would have certainly ensued had the officials blown the last-second call.

To have upheld the quick-count quarterback sneak by Steve McNair would have been the equivalent of rewarding some college kid for the uncanny knack of always being able to grab the shotgun seat in the car at the end of every Chinese Fire Drill.

No, instead let's examine the play-call by Titans coach Jeff Fisher and the offensive brain trust assembled around him on the sideline: A quarterback sneak, for cripe's sake, against a defense that surrenders real estate in millimeters instead of yards? A quarterback sneak, just one week after the same gambit was used to defeat Jacksonville, on a play in which McNair actually fumbled the ball just before breaking the end-zone plane? A quarterback sneak when you've got Eddie George in the backfield?

Fisher is easily among the top five coaches in the league, a guy who never dodges any of the second-guessing inherent to his job, a leader who won't back down from his beliefs. In the aftermath of a defeat that he acknowledged might "define" the Tennessee season, he was staunch in his defense of the quarterback-sneak decision.

He wanted, Fisher explained, to put the ball in the hands of McNair, his clutch player. But it says here that he should have put the ball in McNair's feet. What the Tennessee quarterback still does best, even after 6½ seasons in the league, is run with the ball, or get outside the pocket and improvise a pass. McNair was rewarded a new $47 million contract this past summer not because he has never thrown for more than 15 touchdowns in a season, but because he wins.

But a quarterback sneak, straight into the jaws of 700 pounds of Raven otherwise known as defensive tackles Tony Siragusa and Sam Adams, was not exactly a winning hand Fisher dealt his usually resourceful quarterback. By the time McNair waded into the middle of the line, the behemoth Siragusa was dying for a midnight snack and the Tennessee coaches provided him a tasty morsel.

		There is $100 million of skill-position talent in the Tennessee backfield, just between the quarterback and the tailback alone, so why try to win a crucial game with a two-bit play?

If you didn't mind a butt's-eye view of the big play, then that camera angle from behind the Ravens' defense offered a terrific shot, one of Siragusa and Adams collapsing the Tennessee blocking tandem of center Bruce Matthews and right guard Benji Olson. There was no forward movement by the Titans offense; it was as if they had been frozen in their tracks.

By the time McNair tried to bounce the play outside, weakside linebacker Jamie Sharper and strong safety Corey Harris were waiting for him, and the play was doomed. As the Baltimore defense frolicked, and everyone spent precious minutes reviewing what insufferable Ravens coach Brian Billick termed "an incredible sequence," the focus was directed at the on-field ruling.

The morning after, the spotlight refocused on the play call, and Titans players reported for work pondering what might have occurred had George run a sweep, or even some sort of off-tackle play behind 290-pound lead blocker Wes Ours. Or if McNair had been out of the pocket instead of forced to win the game from the confines of a space smaller than the standard phone booth.

There is $100 million of skill-position talent in the Tennessee backfield, just between the quarterback and the tailback alone, so why try to win a crucial game with a two-bit play?

The rivalry between the Titans and the Ravens has boiled over into a war that tests every player's manhood on every snap. Had the Titans wedged McNair into the end zone, been able to reclaim that sense of machismo they have lately surrendered in the bloodlettings with the Ravens, they might be trumpeting on Tuesday the tug-o'-war victory earned by muscle on Monday night.

But this, alas, was a time for brains and not brawn. As it turns out, the Titans came up woefully shy in both departments.

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.