BALTIMORE -- Well, I guess they're right. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, and make no mistake, the New England Patriots got lucky Monday night.

Oh, they won another one, all right, and they're still undefeated. But their 27-24 come-from-behind defeat of Baltimore was so ... well, extraordinary ... that more than a few of the losers had trouble coping with the defeat.

Linebacker Bart Scott and the Ravens feel jobbed. (AP)

"They get a lot of calls, I'll say that," defensive back Jamaine Winborne said.

"Close only counts in horse shoes," linebacker Bart Scott said. "Bunch of B.S."

"It's hard to go out there and play the Patriots and the refs at the same time," cornerback Chris McAlister said. "They put the crown on top, and they want them to win."

"We had some bogus calls," said running back Willis McGahee, "but it is what it is."

And what it is is another Ravens loss and another Patriots victory. But give the winners this: They did what was necessary to win their 12th in a row, and that's what characterizes good clubs.

But they did have a little help from their friends, and let us count the ways.

On the Patriots' game-winning drive, they were stopped three times in the last two minutes on fourth downs -- only to have something unusual happen to gain a mulligan. One time it was a timeout from the Baltimore sideline that preceded the snap; another it was a false start by a Patriots offensive lineman; a third time it was a questionable holding call against Winborne.

In the end, of course, the Patriots did what they had to, which was win. Tom Brady's touchdown pass to Jabar Gaffney with 44 seconds left was the difference, though the Ravens barely fell short at the end when Kyle Boller's Hail Mary was hauled down by Mark Clayton at the New England 3.

Typical.

"I don't want to take anything away from New England," said Rolle, "but everybody in this locker room feels like the game was taken from us. In a game of this magnitude you don't make those types of calls on fourth down. Let the players decide the outcome.

"It's almost like you can crown New England now, and I'm not taking anything away from them because they are a great team. And they're not asking the refs to help them, but it's an empty feeling."

For 59 minutes the Ravens did what few others have been able to do this season. They not only stayed with New England, they "bullied" the Patriots, as safety Rodney Harrison put it. They ran on them. They passed on them. And they controlled the football.

More important, they frustrated Brady and the league's highest-flying offense, stopping the Patriots on eight of their first nine third-down conversions. In the end, however, New England had too much for their opponents -- though listening to Baltimore you'd think help came from somewhere other than inside the Patriots huddle.

"It's a travesty when you go out there and play that hard, and the refs decide the outcome," Rolle said. "Nobody really likes us because we earned the reputation we have, but you have to let the players play, man. It's sad."

It is sad, but the Ravens can assume some of the blame. After safety Ed Reed returned a Brady interception to the New England 27 late in the first half, for instance, he fumbled. Scratch one score.

Then, when the Ravens had driven to the New England 30 early in the fourth quarter, Boller threw his only interception on a pass that was nowhere near a receiver. Scratch another possible score.

But it was a timeout called from the sidelines with 1:48 left that caused the first ripple. Defensive coordinator Rex Ryan signaled a TO from the sideline after he noticed the Ravens had only one defensive lineman on the field.

That was good, but this was not. The call just beat a New England snap, with Brady stuffed on what would have been a game-clinching fourth-and-1.

"We didn't feel like we were in the right configuration," said Billick, who asked Ryan if he wanted to take a timeout. "We kind of knew what they were going to do and felt like we needed a better call. If he'd have gotten the first, it would've been (the media) screaming, 'Why didn't you call the timeout?' Let's make sure we don't have a revisionist history."

Added Ryan, "You've got to stop the run, and we did. It's just one of those things. It was rough, there's no question about it."

What was rougher was the next snap. Running back Heath Evans was jammed on fourth-and-1, another apparent game-winning stop. Nope, the Patriots were called for illegal procedure, which meant another play -- with Brady picking up the first down on a 12-yard scramble.

But what the Ravens had the hardest time swallowing was a holding call on fourth-and-5 from the 13 when Brady's pass for tight end Benjamin Watson fell incomplete. Winborne was called for the penalty, though it appeared Scott -- not Winborne -- was guilty.

"At the end, you got a phantom call," wide receiver Derrick Mason said. "That's why it's hard to play and win when you're playing against more than the best team in the NFL.

"When NBA teams were playing the (the Chicago Bulls' Michael) Jordan, (Scottie) Pippen and the bunch it was hard to beat them because everybody was on their side. That's the way it is now. You got Brady and the bunch, and it's hard to beat them."

Nevertheless, Baltimore was within 44 seconds.

"When is it ever going to end?" McAlister said of the series of calls on New England's last possession. "I mean, fourth down, third down; stop 'em, stop 'em; penalties; someone calls a timeout after we stop them again. Then they come back. I don't know. I just thought it was never going to end.

"(The officials) are horrible. That's the bottom line. They made a lot of bad calls. They'll send in their little report to say that we made a mistake on this one, and this should have been that and that should've been that, but it's too late."

The Ravens' suggestions that they were jobbed will cost them. The league office doesn't like to hear players or coaches ripping officials, and the Ravens did a better job attacking Walt Anderson's crew than they did the pocket on New England's last drive.

But there's where the luck comes in again. Baltimore was so understaffed with defensive linemen that Ryan had one defensive lineman, four linebackers and six defensive backs on the field for the Patriots' last drive.

"We can't buy a break," said a disappointed Ryan. "That's the thing that's so frustrating. That's why our guys got so worked up in the end because it never worked out for us. We're playing a game with three defensive tackles and three defensive ends, and in the fourth quarter it showed.

"The toughest thing to do is rush the passer in the fourth quarter. We don't make excuses, we just go out and play. But in the end that hurt us.

"I remember Bill Walsh used to say he'd keep 10 or 11 defensive linemen up because it was so important to rush the passer in the fourth quarter. And against a team like that with no huddle and the way they throw the football ... it got a little tough in the end. We definitely got gassed. We were just trying to piece it together."

They came close. With McGahee jamming the ball down the Patriots' throats, Boller playing his best game in years and the defense forcing Brady and his receivers into atypical mistakes, the Ravens nearly pulled the upset that Philadelphia missed a week ago.

Then, defensive coordinator Jim Johnson said he entered the game with two priorities: Pressure Brady and keep Randy Moss from catching deep passes. One week later, Ryan had no such message.

"We were going to play our defense," Ryan said. "We don't copy anybody else. That's just the way we play.

"We knew it was going to be tough. We came into the game thinking we could beat them, and that's our mentality. We thought it was going to be a matchup of the best offense against the best defense, and that's really what it was. Unfortunately, we ended up on the short end of the stick."

That's one way of putting it. His players had another. It makes no difference. In the end, New England's streak is intact, and this time the Patriots should exhale.

They got lucky.