Posted on 05/22/2006 3:01:34 PM PDT by mainepatsfan
Seeking closure Seahawks air gripes over Super Bowl calls with NFL
Posted: Monday May 22, 2006 8:19AM; Updated: Monday May 22, 2006 11:13AM
Last Wednesday, exactly 100 days after the Seahawks fell to the Steelers in Super Bowl XL, NFL director of officiating Mike Pereira boarded a plane for Seattle. Truth be told, he was a little apprehensive. That's putting it mildly.
"Oh, we're loaded up for Mike,'' Seattle coach Mike Holmgren said of Pereira's visit the day before he arrived.
Pereira was going into the same kind of road venue North Carolina enters at Duke, the Red Sox walk into at Yankee Stadium, the Cowboys experience at Philadelphia. Overly dramatic? I don't think so. This was nothing less than the 268th game of the 2005 NFL season. It wasn't at Qwest Field. It wasn't played with either fanfare (no one has reported it until now) or fans. But butterflies were in the stomachs of some of the people in the room before this game began in a meeting room at the Seahawks' training complex in suburban Kirkland.
Someone from the NFL visits every team in the spring to discuss the rules changes and clarifications and points of emphasis for the coming season. It would have been easy for Pereira, knowing that the Seahawks still feel they got screwed by the officiating in Pittsburgh's 21-10 championship win, to dispatch an aide to Seattle for this year's seminar. That would have been the chicken way out, though, and Pereira knew it. So last Thursday at 9 a.m. sharp, on the second day of an Oakland-Seattle swing, he walked into the meeting room and looked at a sea of unhappy faces. Call it Sixteen Angry Men.
(Excerpt) Read more at sportsillustrated.cnn.com ...
Well, play so that you overcome bad officiating. That's what I was always told to do.
The Seahawks never managed that.
Good or bad officiating it's tough to win when your defense gives up big plays.
I've got to be the only person who thinks that Seattle was screwed, but that even without the screwing they would've lost.
Of course, I'm starting to think Harrington will be a decent QB, so there must be something wrong with me.
I'm trying to imagine Mike Holmgren having a Howard Dean moment. Can't do it.
You smoking some of Ricky's best stuff?
man it never ends....
It wasn't as if Seattle was able to do what it normally does against the Steelers anyway (i.e. run the ball)....
The game is over and done with. If they are still worried about it now, I might just pick Arizona to win the NFC West....
I agree with you on Detroits poor management. The jury is still out on Harrington, though..
Harrington played well in the SB (and all season really), if his open receivers had actually caught a few of those passes in bounds they would have won.
Sorry wrong guy, brain not in full NFL mode, hockey season you know.
That Harrington, all wait and see.
Hasselbeck was the QB..
yeah, brainfart. Hard to think NFL in May.
A lot of folks are jumping on that bandwagon.
I know the Lions were lousy but he didn't show any signs of improvement either.
yeah....
Arizona still has to find a defense somewhere.
I'm on the fence in the NFC West (and for that matter, the AFC West)....
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