Craig Heist, wtop.com

WASHINGTON – It would have been a fairy tale-type story to see the Harbaugh brothers in Indianapolis in two weeks leading both their teams onto the field at Lucas Oil Stadium in the Super Bowl. But special teams let both men down on Sunday in different ways.

Shoulda, coulda, woulda.

It won’t happen because both John of the Ravens and Jim of the 49ers were on the wrong end of fate and a kicker’s leg.

After Joe Flacco led the Ravens down the field in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter, kicker Billy Cundiff had a chance to tie the AFC Championship Game and send it into overtime. But he hooked the kick to the left with 11 seconds to go from 32 yards out, sending the Patriots to the Super Bowl with a 23-20 win.

“It’s a kick I’ve made a thousand times in my career,” Cundiff said. “I just went out there and didn’t convert. That’s the way things go. There’s really no excuse for it.”

Thanks to some great slow-motion instant replay, you could see the disbelief on the faces of the Ravens. Head coach John Harbaugh mouthed the words, “He missed it.” Linebacker Terrell Suggs looked on in shock. You could see him say, “Oh, my God.”

Two plays before, wide receiver Lee Evans appeared he was going to catch the go-ahead touchdown pass from Flacco, but Evans was separated from the ball by Sterling Moore in the end zone.

This one will be hard for the Ravens and their fans to swallow. In fact, they might not get over it for quite some time.

They outplayed the Patriots for most of the afternoon and made it a Ravens-type game.

Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who threw six touchdowns a week ago against the Broncos, went 22-for-36 for 239 yards and two interceptions against the Ravens. If you had told the Ravens before the game that was going to happen, to a man they would tell you they were going to win that football game.

“Obviously, a disappointing, stunning loss at the end there,” said Harbaugh.

“I thought our guys played their hearts out. We made plays and came up a play or two short at the end, but it doesn’t lessen what they accomplished this year, and it doesn’t lessen what they accomplished in this game. I like our football team and I like where we are going.”

Later, on the other end of the country, John’s brother Jim saw his hopes of the 49ers going to the dance dashed in a 20-17 overtime loss to the Giants on a Lawrence Tynes 31-yard field goal after the Niners’ Kyle Williams fumbled a punt to give the Giants a short field.

Earlier, Williams muffed a punt, with replays showing the ball went off his knee as he was making an attempt to get out of the way. That set up a 17-yard touchdown pass from Eli Manning to Mario Manningham.

Yes, it was again time for slow-motion instant replay as Williams was seen saying to the official, “Are you kidding me?”

(All of this makes me wonder just how many calls were blown in the past before instant replay. How many championships were decided by officials? Just asking.)

“It will be a tough one. It will take a while to get over,” Harbaugh said. “There were a lot of ways in which we played well enough to win. We just didn’t come away with it.”

Both coaches sounded very familiar in their postgame press conferences, and both used the same tone after seeing their teams suffer excruciating losses in a cruel twist of fate.

Both teams will now have to be mentally tough to get through this. The Ravens may have a harder time, because they had the chance to win the game or at least tie it. The Niners’ turnovers were eventually their demise.

Both teams have to remember how this feels and use it to get even. Be mad about it. Slam a helmet against the locker and move on. Sooner or later, these kinds of things even themselves out and go in your favor.

John and Jim Harbaugh. After watching the Thanksgiving night game in Baltimore won by the Ravens, it would have been fun watching them go at it in the Super Bowl.

On this Sunday, both were kicked out of the championship games in a very gut-wrenching, cruel way.

Follow Craig Heist and WTOP on Twitter.

(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)