BALTIMORE -- Last week, Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh said he regretted a decision to accept a penalty that extended a drive that ultimately ended in a touchdown.

This time, Harbaugh believed his risky call was still the right one to make.

After Sunday's 16-10 loss to the Washington Redskins, Harbaugh strongly defended the Ravens' fake field goal attempt in the second quarter. With Baltimore ahead 10-6, the Ravens came away with no points after kicker Justin Tucker underthrew tight end Crockett Gillmore instead of attempting a 34-yard field goal.

"I'm not second-guessing it. You can second-guess it, but I'm not," Harbaugh said. "I've stood up here for nine years and said we're going to be aggressive. People are going to have to defend fakes; they're going to have to defend us going for it on fourth down. That's just the way we're going to continue to play, because that's what we believe in. We believe in giving our players a chance to make plays, and we're going to keep doing it. We're not apologizing for that."

Justin Tucker said the Ravens had been working on the fake field goal play they ran Sunday for five years. Tucker's first pass in a game since high school fell incomplete. Mitchell Layton/Getty Images

According to ESPN analytics, the right call would have been to kick the field goal. The math says the Ravens would've needed a 51 percent chance of success to make the play worth the risk. It's unknown what the success rate would be for a fake, because they're rare. But a standard play from scrimmage would have a 15 percent chance of success in that situation, according to ESPN analytics.

But it's hard to say the decision was a bad one, because it was based on the confidence the Ravens have in that play and what they saw in the Redskins' field goal block team. If the Ravens had kicked a field goal, they would've only needed a field goal on that final drive to tie the game.

"We definitely saw something we thought we could exploit," Harbaugh said. "We felt like it would be there for us. We gave it a shot, and it didn't work out for us."

The Ravens were expecting the edge-rushers to crash down to block the field goal attempt. But Washington reacted well to the play, perhaps because Tucker was lined up as a left-footed kicker instead of a right-footed one.

Tucker, who hadn't thrown a pass in a game since high school, said it was a play the Ravens have been practicing for five years. The pressure from the Redskins caused Tucker to make an off-balance throw.

"I think I could have thrown a stronger ball in there, not laid it up there," Tucker said. "Would I like to have that one back? Sure. But we don't get that luxury. We move on."