FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Duron Harmon told anyone who would listen that he was going to intercept Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco on Saturday.

They were brash words for a New England Patriots backup safety, in his second season out of Rutgers, who had only one interception all season. Flacco had thrown 164 consecutive passes in the postseason without having one picked.

Harmon was a prophet.

Baltimore was trailing in the AFC divisional playoff 35-31, with the ball at the New England 36-yard line and 1:46 remaining. The Patriots’ defense had been leaking all evening, yielding 428 yards.

Flacco looked to his left and saw wide receiver Torrey Smith being covered by second-year cornerback Logan Ryan, in for the injured Brandon Browner. Harmon was drifting over, but Flacco took a chance and launched a pass into the end zone.

Harmon cradled it and sealed the victory.

“That’s something we talked about all week,” Harmon said. “He’ll throw his shot up there and you’ve got to be ready to make a play, and I was.”

“That’s the biggest pick of my life.”

What else had he talked about?

“I was telling my family all week that I was going to get a pick this game,” Harmon said. “I was just glad it came at that time. There’s no better time to come than at the end of the game.”

Browner said Harmon was telling his teammates the same thing, but was warned not to go public with his confident prediction.

“That’s in-house,” Browner laughed. “As long as he doesn’t say it to the media before the game.”

Overall, it was a poor performance by a Patriots defense that was thought to be good enough to help win a fourth Super Bowl. It was the most points New England allowed since a 41-14 loss at Kansas City in Week 4.

“We’ll come in here and (Coach) Bill (Belichick) will have everything laid out on what went wrong and what we need to do better next game,” said safety Devin McCourty, who also intercepted Flacco. “That’ll never change, but for tonight I’ll be happy that we get to come to work tomorrow.”

Flacco defended his decision to test Ryan and Harmon.

“They had a new corner in there (Ryan) and that safety (Harmon) was cheating that way a little bit,” Flacco said. “But I thought I might be able to sneak the ball in there and take a shot at the end zone and get us some points on the board there, with Torrey on a good matchup, even though they were cheating to his side a little bit. So I took my shot and it just didn’t work out. Didn’t get it there.”

Flacco’s counterpart, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, wasn’t surprised by the outcome of Flacco’s gamble.

“He’s picked me in practice a bunch – Duron – so it was nice to see him pick another quarterback, especially at a big-time moment like he did,” Brady said.

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