SUPER BOWL LIVE THREAD, Sunday February 5, 2006 (Steelers Win 21-10)

February 5, 2006 | seattle conservative

[Seattle Conservative]

Are you ready for some football????!!!!

Seattle Seahawks v.s. Pittsburgh Steelers ABC 6:15 ET February 5, 2006

SUPER BOWL XL

VS.

6:30 PM EST on ABC
Pregame coverage begins at 2:30 PM

Catch all the action on ESPNRadio
Catch the game on ESPN Scoreboard

For more pregame coverage, tune in to ESPN for Sunday NFL Countdown: Super Bowl Edition
For highlights of previous Super Bowls, tune in to ESPN2

[ATCNavyRetiree]

...In the eye of the beholder. Just like Rush sez today...QUIT WHINING!!

[Catholic Iowan]

"Browns in 2018! Woo!"

Detroit in....nevermind. ;-)

[pollyannaish]

I'm a little irritated today simply because I would love to know what people would have said had the shoe been on the other foot. It wouldn't have been much different because we're all human.

That said, it is what it is.

Enjoy the win.

[Libertina]

Right! Go Seahawks!

[Libertina]

You may be right, but we are developing a good team and Go HAWKS!

[merry10]

Hello. I am a PGH fan, and not scum.

merry

[Libertina]

RE: Penalites or no penalties: Thanks j, I didn't see that. (Unfortunately too much talking at our party as well ;) LOL

[OLD REGGIE]

What an exciting game NOT!

I think it will be considered (for one year) as the 40th best SuperBowl.

[Allegra]

Oh, well. Y'all should trade down and stock up on OL. Sack. Sack. Sack. 3 yard run. Sack. Sack. Sack.

Ouch...how well I know. Yes, we need to get an offensive line...and Reggie Bush.

Reggie will inject some excitement into our team. (As long as he has a line to protect him.)

By the way, your Titans used to be my Oilers. I like Jeff Fisher and most of the team.

But all of us Houstonians despise Bud "the Rug" Adams. ;-)

[ventana]

Haven't read all 4000 plus posts. I just have my own take: worst Super Bowl ever. The importance of this National Holiday will now forever be suspect. Death of the thirty second commerical. And public professional suicide of the Wrinkly Rollers now a fait accompli. V's wife.

[suburban_republican]

This is for ALL of you posting in this forum.

I can't tell you how DISAPPOINTED I am reading this nonsense. This is the same kind of garbage I hear from democrats who talk about Bush's poll numbers after he won the election.

The Steelers won the Super Bowl. The officials didn't hand them ANYTHING. They outcoached and outplayed the Seahawks. What's wrong with all of you? Pittsburgh may be a "democrat" city but it's a VERY conservative place and this nonsense about officials blowing it is frankly making me think we've just become a nation of whiners.

If Seattle wanted this game badly enough, MAYBE they would have managed the clock better at the end of the first half and the end of the game. Shaun Alexander ran 93 yards to nowhere. It wasn't a blowout and the game didn't end on a 1 yard touchdown run. It was a team effort for the full 60 minutes.

I am a PROUD Steelers fan, ALWAYS. We are a force to be reckoned with for years, we are losing the Bus but our core remains intact.

The ONLY stat that counts, Steelers 21. Seahawks 10.

Pittsburgh Steelers, Super Bowl XL Champs.

[Shanty Shaker]

Wait till the Steelers win again next year. :)

[Rockitz]

WOW! Got the spread right on and only missed the points by 3 on each team.

[mikemc282002]

In the same way, you're looking at the game through black and gold colored glasses. Your team won. You hate to see the slightest doubt cast on the outcome. You want your team to be acknowledged as the best in the world. You don't want anyone to tarnish what happened.

As a Pats fan, congratulations. Your guys won. You're the champs. Yay. You'll get the parade and the rings, and if I know the NFL schedule makers, quiet possibly the New England Patriots at home on opening night next year. Great job. Enjoy the offseason until then. Wear your Ben Roth jersey with pride. Wave that terrible towel.

But please, don't tell me I didn't see what my own eyes saw. That game was ridiculous. This entire playoff season has been ridiculous. All due to grossly poor officiating. We were simply discussing our opinions. Sorry to "disappoint" you.

[Shanty Shaker]

You should have seen the palpitations I had when the refs gave The Patriots that game a few years back!!!!

[M0sby]

"...In the eye of the beholder. Just like Rush sez today...QUIT WHINING!!"

Funny...I don't remember whining!
I have been trying to congratulate Steeler fans along the way~


But, if you thought I was whining, sorry...in the eye of the beholder and all that.

[Night Hides Not]

Best comment of the evening came from Mick Jagger, during his introduction to "Satisfaction":

"Here's a song we could've played at Super Bowl I"!

Hilarious!

True, but hilarious.

As much as I love old "anthems", the only thing worse than hearing "Start Me Up", would be hearing Skynyrd play "Free Bird" at the Super Bowl. And I'm a big Skynyrd fan.

[FredZarguna]

The refs allowed Seattle's line to get away with holding constantly. That could well have changed the outcome of the game. Luckily, it did not. Watching Chimo literally tackled on play after play, sometimes with a Seahawk sitting on top of him when the whistle blew had me howling at the poor officiating myself.

Specifically, what are the Left Coast whiners whining about?

1. A "bad" pass interference call in the end zone. WRONG. That was a good call. Pushing off a defender with the ball in the air is pass interference. On the replay, the official is reaching for his flag as the receiver pushes off, not after the ball arrived. He saw (and called) the right transgression immediately. No touchdown as "taken away" from the 'Hawks. A play with an offensive penalty is a non-play, and there was no score.
2. Roethlisberger didn't cross the plane of the goal line. WRONG. The tip of the ball clearly crosses the plane in the goal, while Ben is in the air, and was pushed back by the Seattle defender--too late. Claims by Seahawk fans that Roethlisberger moved the ball into the end zone after he was already down are a red herring. The official didn't award the TD on that basis.
3. A "bad" holding call on a play that would have placed Seattle at the one. WRONG. Seattle was holding on that down, and on almost every down of that drive, and finally they got caught. Of course John Madden didn't think it was holding. He coached a team for ten years that played exactly the same way: the most penalized team of the 1970's. But John Madden wasn't on the field. The officials were, and they were right.
4. Hasselbeck was improperly flagged for a chop on a legal tackle. RIGHT. A terrible call by the refs. But guess what? This was the least consequential of the supposed miscues, because the fundamental problem was that the Steelers now had the ball and proceeded to chew up four minutes. The additional 15 yards of field distance was nothing compared to the fact that the Seattle defense couldn't stop Pittsburgh from getting a game-winning first down.

   So essentially you're saying "bad officiating" because of ONE PLAY. Please get real.

   As for the poor quality of referee'ing in the NFL, please don't presume to lecture to a Steeler fan about that. We had an AFC title game taken away from us on the penultimate play of the game that placed Tennessee into field goal range, and had a 28-10 stomping of Indianapolis turned into a 21-18 thriller by an absolutely hideous misinterpretation of the rules by the officials. Cowher has repeatedly embarrassed the zebras over the last 14 years by pointing (often on the field, during the game) to places in the rulebook where they've been wrong.

   The NFL needs professional referees. Their refs need to be schooled in the rules and drilled on film during the week. The replay rule needs to be revised so that it's handled the way it was designed in the Big Ten: review every play by independent officials. It shouldn't be necessary for a coach--often stymied by the refusal of the home replay team to air video they know is detrimental to their cause--to have to challenge the call. Officials should be self-policing. In at least one College conference they are. They also need to use the scorecards they score every week on officiating crews to eliminate all but the very best squads from the playoffs--just as all but the best teams are eliminated. To simply reward officials with at least one playoff spot because they've ref'd during the season is an atrocity. And they need to use the grading system to "cut" those officials and teams with the lowest scores at the start of the next season--not just a handfull of truly terrible officials at the season's end as they do now.

   To their credit, Homgren's team was better than their fans. They admitted they dropped balls. They admitted they overthrew receivers. They admitted they failed to cover receivers. Their coaching staff prepared poorly for some plays. Their clock management at the end of both halves was genuinely inept.

   Believe me, Coach Holmgren and his staff aren't going to waste one second next season telling their players they lost because of poor officiating. They didn't. They played a better team and they lost. The Seahawks know it, and they'll be a better team next year because they'll grow from it. Their fans need to do the same.

[M0sby]

Your article is very well written.
I may disagree with some of your points, but you spent some time on it, and it shows.

I believe that the Hawks could have won REGARDLESS of the calls (right or wrong) if they had been playing their best game.
They didn't, and so they didn't! :-)

The only thing that I will point out is this though.
Seattle "fans" are not the only ones complaining about the calls.
Go here to see this ESPN poll (very unscientific I am sure though!)

http://espn.go.com/

All in all, thanks for such a well written post..

[suburban_republican]

To add to the Roethlisberger touchdown that some are disputing, wasn't that a third down play??? So, it becomes 4th and inches, Cowher goes for it of course and 99 out of 100 times we score.

I know there are "online polls" out there with numbers favoring officials blowing calls. Same online polls that claim Bush "stole the elections" in 2000 and 2004.