FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — John Harbaugh is convinced that what the New England Patriots did to his defense in the third quarter on Saturday just wasn’t right.

New England ran three plays that declared a receiver as IN-eligible. The confusion helped the Patriots to a touchdown that made it 28-21. Near the end of the drive, after the third trick move, the Baltimore coach was hit with a penalty after charging down the sideline and yelling at the officials.

“It’s a substitution type or a trick type of a thing,” Harbaugh said after the Ravens’ 35-31 loss. “So they don’t give you the opportunity, they don’t give you the chance to make the proper substitutions and things like that.

“It’s not something that anybody’s ever done before. The league will look at that type of thing and I’m sure that they’ll make some adjustments and things like that.”

Asked if he’d seen it before, Harbaugh said, “No. Nobody’s ever seen that before.”

Did he consider it cheap or dirty?

“I’m not going to comment on that,” Harbaugh said.

Over on the other side, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was having none of it, saying, “Maybe those guys got to study the rule book and figure it out.”

–Julian Edelman was a quarterback at Kent State. But until he threw his 51-yard touchdown pass to Danny Amendola on Saturday, he had never attempted an NFL pass.

He tossed a beauty.

“He throws it better than I did,” Brady said. “He spun it. It was a perfect spiral, right in stride, so … we gotta make some rules they can’t throw it better than I can, but he did. It’s pretty sweet.”

Edelman threw 30 touchdown passes in college.

“The coach dialed up the double pass,” he said. “We’ve had it in for a little bit and finally got it called, and we all saw that the coverage we wanted was going to be there, and we were able to execute the play.”

He said they have worked on the play “once every couple of weeks, but I practice it in the back yard with Danny all the time. We’ve been secretly practicing that for a while.”

Asked if he had been lobbying for the play, Edelman, who caught eight passes and returned three punts for 45 yards, said, “I just kind of sit back and do my job. I don’t throw it as good as I used to. I can’t lobby that much.”

–The Patriots probably don’t win this playoff game without their Rutgers connection.

Devin McCourty picked off a Joe Flacco pass with the score tied 28-28, and even though his team didn’t cash in, the interception kept the Ravens from answering the two straight New England scores to tie it.

Then fellow safety Duron Harmon intercepted a Flacco pass in the end zone to all but seal the deal. McCourty was then given credit for knocking down the Hail Mary try at the end.

Oh, and did we mention cornerback Logan Ryan is also from the State University of New Jersey.

“They were in a great program there with Coach (Greg) Schiano at Rutgers,” said Patriots coach Bill Belichick, who ran summer practices with Schiano when the later was coaching the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. ” … I’m really proud of those guys and I’m sure Coach Schiano is proud of those guys and I’m sure Rutgers is too.”

Brady, asked about Harmon, said, “He’s picked me in practice a bunch. It’s nice to see him pick off another quarterback.”

–Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, arguably the most-dangerous offensive player in the game, caught seven passes for 108 yards, the second 100-yard receiving game in his postseason career. But with a Hail Mary coming from the Ravens and with tall cornerback Brandon Browner out with an injury, there was Gronkowski in the end zone playing defense.

“I was just going for a jump ball, knock it down and make sure the other team doesn’t get it,” Gronkowski said. “It was successful; we did a good job.”

–This was a hard-fought game and the Patriots didn’t come out unscathed heading to next week.

In the first half, center Bryan Stork left with a knee injury. Later, Browner was lost to an injury and didn’t return.

Oh, and Brady got poked in the eye, which was visible after the game.

–Lost in the shuffle of the big finish was Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco throwing four touchdown passes. But they came before two interceptions, the first ending a run of 197 straight postseason passes without a pick, second on the NFL’s all-time list.

“You’ve got to give credit to them, they have a good offense. These guys have been doing this for years,” Flacco said of the Patriots. “They don’t panic, they just play the game and keep at it, keep at it.

“The same type of things that we like to do and it worked out for them. They got themselves back in the game, tied it up, we pulled away, they were still in striking distance, and they made their play.”