How can you saw that ?!!!
Football is just as honest as is my sport, Brother !!!
Posted on 02/06/2006 6:34:20 AM PST by bikepacker67
DETROIT - What crime-ridden, boarded-building, automotive-industry-ravaged, snowy Detroit couldn't do, an NFL officiating crew pulled off with relative ease in front of plenty of bored-silly football fans inside beautiful Ford Field.
Sports' and television's most indestructible beast - the Super Bowl - met its match in the 40th playing of the game the world stops to watch.
The inevitable finally happened. A group of middle-aged executives trying to keep pace with a group of highly trained 20-something athletes destroyed America's sports holiday.
Pittsburgh's one-for-the-thumb Super Bowl will be remembered as the game when physically overmatched referees and heads-buried NFL executives flipped non-Steelers fans an XL middle finger.
The Steelers shook off a terrible first quarter and whipped the Seattle Seahawks 21-10 in Super Bowl XL. Pittsburgh coach Bill Cowher, after a 14-year pursuit, secured his long-overdue first title. Receiver Hines Ward won the MVP award with a five-catch, 123-yard, one-TD performance. The Bus, Jerome Bettis, contributed a couple of big plays in his Super Bowl homecoming. And Ben Roethlisberger, the boy-wonder QB, overcame a couple of critical mistakes with a few all-heart runs and throws.
The Seahawks did what they could to help the Steelers, too. Jerramy Stevens, called out by Pittsburgh linebacker Joey Porter during pregame hype, dropped enough Matt Hasselbeck passes that FBI investigators would be negligent for failing to interrogate Stevens today. His third-quarter TD catch has to be considered a smokescreen, clutched with two hands to fool people suspicious of a point-shaving scandal.
Seattle coach Mike Holmgren's end-of-the-first-half play-calling and clock management also contributed to Pittsburgh's victory. Trailing 7-3 and having moved the ball to the Pittsburgh 40 with 48 seconds on the clock, the Seahawks wasted a good 30 seconds as Hasselbeck flapped his arms, shouted directions and impersonated Peyton Manning at the line of scrimmage. If not for a Pittsburgh timeout, it appeared the Seahawks were going to take a delay-of-game penalty or try to run out the entire clock.
Eventually, Holmgren sent Josh Brown out to attempt a 54-yard field goal - which Brown missed - and walked into the Seattle locker room with one timeout in his pocket. But make no mistake about Super Bowl XL, the performance of referee Bill Leavy and his crew overshadowed Pittsburgh's heroics and Seattle's blunders.
Paul Tagliabue's league has an officiating crisis. Bogus, inconsistent flag-throwing and rule-interpreting is making the national pastime difficult to take seriously. So far, only Joey Porter has demonstrated the necessary courage to address what we all see.
Many of these part-time, 50-year-old referees don't know what they're doing and can't keep up with the action. Porter fumed when the refs nearly stole Pittsburgh's playoff victory over Indianapolis by overturning a Troy Polamalu interception.
Porter probably won't address the first-quarter touchdown that Sunday's referees stole from the Seahawks. Hasselbeck avoided pressure and hit Darrell Jackson in the back of the end zone with a beautiful strike. The Pittsburgh cornerback immediately turned to back judge Bob Waggoner and begged for an offensive pass-interference call. After a couple of seconds of thought, Waggoner granted the Pittsburgh request and erased Seattle's hard-earned touchdown.
The Seahawks settled for a field goal. Had they not been robbed of the four points, they would have ended the game with the ball and the opportunity to drive for a game-tying touchdown.
Seattle was victimized by two other questionable first-half calls_including the 1-yard TD run the refs awarded Roethlisberger when he seemed a few inches short of the goal line_but the final backbreaking call helped set up Pittsburgh's game-icing, reverse, wide-receiver-pass-to-Ward touchdown early in the fourth quarter.
Ike Taylor intercepted Hasselbeck deep in Pittsburgh territory. Hasselbeck stopped Taylor at the Pittsburgh 29 with a perfectly executed form tackle across Taylor's knees. The refs flagged Hasselbeck for illegally "blocking" Taylor across his knees and gave the Steelers 15 additional yards.
The Seahawks justifiably can complain that Sunday's one-sided officiating disrupted their offensive rhythm and undermined their focus. The officiating had to creep inside their head.
And NFL fans need to acknowledge that there's something terribly wrong with professional football. This year's playoffs were horrible. Sunday's Super Bowl stands as an appropriate symbol of the 2006 playoffs_boring and poorly officiated.
We are too technologically advanced, and the NFL is overrun with too much money to put up with the kind of officiating errors that are ruining the pro game. The league needs younger, full-time referees on the field and a three-man officiating team sitting in the press box supervising what is called on the field. All calls - including ones like the offensive pass-interference call that killed Seattle - should be subject to quick review and overturning.
You don't need an official on the field to stick his head underneath a blanket draped over a camera to review calls. Those decisions can be made in a press-box suite. Instead of stopping the game for commercial timeouts on nearly every change of possession or when a coach just wants to stop the clock, the game should go to a commercial timeout whenever a critical penalty needs to be reviewed in the booth.
Also, the officiating crew should be forced to address the media and defend their decisions. It's ridiculous that the media are allowed to confront players, coaches, executives and owners, but the guys who can easily change the course of a game with one questionable decision are pretty much off limits.
Bill Leavy and his crew ruined Super Bowl XL. Am I the only one who would like to hear them defend their incompetence?
How can you saw that ?!!!
Football is just as honest as is my sport, Brother !!!
>>I thought there were some real bad calls in the game.
Me, too, and I didn't have a dog in that fight.
Yesterday's rancid officiating has nothing to do with baseball. :)
Were I a Seahawk fan, I'd be wild. Since I'm not, I'm just shaking my head. I think this column is a little over the top, but years ago Bud Grant led the call for full-time officials and it seems valid to me.
| Refs were far from Super in this one ^ |
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| Posted by RedBloodedAmerican On News/Activism ^ 02/06/2006 9:50:28 AM EST msn sports ^ | 2.06.2006 | Kevin Hench / FOXSports.com This is the space where I get to crow about the frightening precision of my Super Bowl prediction. Where I get to remind everyone that I guaranteed the Steelers would win the title after they beat the Colts. That they were the only championship-caliber team among the final four. That they would dismantle the Broncos in Denver and waylay whomever the NFC sent at them.snip I've never felt so empty being right. I feel dirty. I wish I'd been wrong. The Steelers did not deserve to win this game. They were not the better team. O'Connor was right. Seattle was... |
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Pittsburg got almost all the questionable calls. My thought was maybe the refs had about $100K bet on the under for all the drives they killed.
Seahawks fans after Super Bowk XL = Gore Supporters after 2000 election
It was a very dull game. I was doing other things around the house, and only casually watching it.
Close ain't the word. That was practically splitting atoms. But it was real enough.
No, that was a correct call. If a receiver pushes off with a stiff arm to get separation to catch the ball, that is offensive pass interference. Without the pushoff, his move might have been enough to get open for the pass, but probably not. Most likely, the defensive back is close enough to knock the ball down had the receiver not pushed off. That call was absolutely correct, and I can't believe that both Irvin and Steve Young sat there and said otherwise. Irvin knows that is offensive pass interference as he got away with it a lot of times and also got called for it a lot of times. In fact, later in his career he couldn't get away with it because he had gained so much notoriety for his skill on the pushoff move. You can complain about the block below the waist call hen Hasselbeck made the tackle on the play, and I'm surprised that the coaches weren't able to successfully talk the ref out of that bad call, but the offensive pass interference call was a good call.
And the seahawks benefited from some bad calls themselves. Like the completed pass that was fumbled after two steps that was whistled dead as an incomplete pass. If the ref lets that one play out like he should have, the Steelers pick up the fumble and probably return it to mid-field. All in all, there were some missed calls, but only the whiniest Seahawks sour grape koolaid drinker can claim that the refs stole that game from the seahawks.
I agree. Tatum never touched that ball! We was robbed.
I'm a Navy dad too
Give Seattle 7 for the first TD, give them 7 more for the holding call on the 2 yard line reception. Seattle 24, Steelers 21.
STEELERS! Good name for them!
I luuuuv instant replay!
I didn't real have a dog in the fight, but the game was poorly called. In general, the Seahawks got robbed.
The offensive pass interference against Seattle in the end zone? Come on.
Ben Rothlisbergers(sp) faux tochdown? I watched that a dozen times and NEVER saw the ball even touch the plane of the goal line until after his knee was ling down.
Hasselbeck's low block call? Oh, brother. Another bad call.
And, what's up with the line judge who nose-dived into the pile of players?
No money on the outcome, but it was a poorly called game. The author is correct about the need for revision.
Finally an honest Steeler fan.
They'll need a rule change to legalize pushing off by the receiver for that call to be overturned.
I really could have cared about either team and really don't care who won. I just wanted to see a good game. Having said that, in my opinion, it was the worse officiated Super Bowl I have ever seen. It is the damn Super Bowl, let them play. That offensive pass interference call on Seattle in the first was soft, to say the least. Hell, how often do you see offensive pass interference called in the regular season when both players are shoving each other all out? Usually, those calls go against the defense. To call it on that soft a play, in the Super Bowl? Nonsense. Moroever, to call holding on a play that would have given Seattle the ball on the two when even Madden is saying, "I'm sorry, that is NOT holding in the NFL." Methinks something was a bit amiss in the officiating. You can call holding on almost any play and for some reason, the officials were calling it on the most critical. Seemed weired to me.
FIXED!!! Sorry game, and all sports shows this morning are saying the same things!
An extended version of the pre-game show with Stevie Wonder might have been a better half-time show. Not too sure what to make of your other comment about "whitening things up". Or maybe I'm just more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt. But, Michael McDonald? Old Sock-in-the-Mouth Mike? The man that ruined the Doobie Brothers?! That Michael McDonald?!
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