No one has provided more information on Billy Cundiff's miss than Stefan Fatsis, author of "A Few Seconds of Panic", a book about his brief stint as a backup kicker with the Denver Broncos in training camp. For Deadspin, Fatsis has talked with Cundiff and has his own uniquely qualified perspective on the yank.
To summarize — and you should go read the whole thing — Cundiff has a specific routine he follows when the Ravens get into field goal range. On first down, he does one thing. On second, something else. Third, something else. Unfortunately, the Patriots scoreboard had the down wrong, which threw Cundiff out of whack.
On Sunday, during what would be the Ravens' final set of downs, Cundiff completed his first-down prep and checked the scoreboard: second down. He ran through his routine and looked up at the scoreboard again: third down.
Then, suddenly, chaos on the sidelines.
Coaches were screaming—from the opposite end of the field to where Cundiff was thinking his third-down pre-kick kicker thoughts—for the field-goal unit. The play clock was ticking and Cundiff, as per normal, was back from the sideline and farther from the line of scrimmage than his teammates. As he was not expecting to go in yet, he had to run to get into position for a game-tying kick.
So there it is. The scoreboard was wrong, Cundiff was rushed, and his mechanics on the kick went goofy. I don't pass this along as any kind of an excuse for Cundiff — you can decide for yourself if his miss is excusable or something that even needs excusing — but it's an explanation.
The scoreboard malfunction is what Skip Bayless was asking Terrell Suggs about when Bayless got himself called a d-bag (and prompted Vikings punter Chris Kluwe to raise some questions about equine pleasure-giving — yes, you're going to find naughty language at that link). Since it's the Patriots, some level of dishonesty and underhandedness will be assumed, but I'll be surprised and more than a little impressed if it's somehow uncovered that they hatched a scheme with knowledge of Billy Cundiff's pre-kick routine and a scoreboard operator as a confederate.