Ravens fans blast John Harbaugh as HC drains 2 timeouts in 1st quarter vs. Bengals - "Bro isn’t a real human" 

Baltimore Ravens fans had some harsh words for head coach John Harbaugh after he burned two timeouts early in the first quarter on the Cincinnati Bengals' first drive of the game. With Joe Burrow trying to fashion a touchdown pass, he threw short of the goalline, and the pass was caught for a gain of a couple of yards. The resulting play was second-and-goal.

The ball came loose from the receiver's hands after he landed out of bounds having already made the catch. It was not immediately clear, though, and John Harbaugh threw a flag. The problem was even if it had been successful, it would still have been a second-and-goal with a loss of just a couple of yards. The next offensive play was unlikely to be affected.

As it is, the challenge failed, which led to the Ravens losing a timeout. On the next play, when he was not happy with how his defense was matching up against the Bengals' offense, he called another timeout. This was all in the first quarter and the result was a touchdown after Baltimore gifted Cincinnati a first-and-goal with a defensive pass interference on a fourth-down throw.

Fans could not believe how aggressive John Harbaugh was with his challenges early in the game and they took to X/Twitter to express their frustrations. Here are some responses.

Others concurred, with some calling if it was worth it and questioning John Harbaugh's intentions. Here are some more reactions.

"Was the challenge worth the risk of losing a timeout" - queried one.

"looked like the ref was telling him to not do it too bro isn’t a real human" - joked another

"wtf is he doing" - wondered one more fan.

Ravens HC John Harbaugh has previously explained his 'challenge' philosophy

John Harbaugh blew two challenges in the Ravens' loss earlier in the season to the Raiders. At that point, he had only two successful attempts from 12 drops of the red flag since 2022. He explained that he was not worried about that, noting,

“If you want to have a winning percentage in challenges, just don’t challenge stuff. Just let it go. If you miss a challenge ... if you have one that you should have challenged that you don’t challenge, it doesn’t get counted against your record, but I don’t think that way... I’m trying to think about the opportunity and the game to see if we could have a chance to use a challenge to our advantage to try to win the game.”

He continued with the same thought process on Thursday Night Football against the Bengals.