Ravens' field goal was not reviewable because it was above the upright

The officials ruled that the Ravens made a field goal in the fourth quarter on Monday night, even though it wasn't clear that the kick, which went over the left upright, was actually good. That question, however, is not reviewable.

Although field goals and extra point tries can be reviewed on replay, they are not reviewable when the kick is higher than the top of the uprights, according to the NFL's rules.

"Whether a field goal or Try attempt crossed above the crossbar and inside the uprights is reviewable, but only if the ball crosses the plane of the goal post below the top of the uprights, or if the ball touches anything," the NFL's replay policies say.

So what constitutes a ball going inside the uprights, when the ball is higher than the uprights? The whole ball has to be inside the outer edge of the upright for the kick to be good.

"The entire ball must pass through the vertical plane of the goal, which is the area above the crossbar and between the uprights or, if above the uprights, between their outside edges," the NFL's rulebook says.

No replay angle definitively showed whether the Ravens' field goal was inside the outer edge of the upright, and even if an angle had shown it, the play wasn't reviewable anyway. The real solution is for the NFL to raise the height of the uprights even higher than the 35 feet they were set at under a new rule in 2014. As kickers keep getting better, field goals pass over the higher uprights even more frequently, and if the officials make a mistake, the NFL currently has no way of fixing it.