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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Why not a word about the people that really won the Superbowl for the Steelers? The Refs. I've rarely seen such a one sided set of calls. The Steeler's "touchdown" when Rothlesberger clearly didn't have control of the ball when it came near the end zone, the fact that Madden and Michals couldn't see who they'd called for holding on the Seahawks pass to the 1 yard line despite being announcers that routinely say there's holding on every play, the non-call on the horsecollar tackle on Alexander, the bogus "pushing off" penalty on the Seahawk's first touchdown. The Seahawks had one play go in their favor when a catch and fumble was ruled incomplete, but even there that fumble rolled out of bounds before anyone came near it. The officiating was so bad and so one sided that even in a room full of people that were either Steelers fans or had no side to root for, when Hasselbeck's "fumble" in the second half was overturned the entire room erupted. Not because it was a bad call but because everyone was astonished they'd made the right call. One guy who had missed the ruling came back in the room, saw the reaction and said "Seahawks get screwed again?" I've seen bad officiating before, often at Dallas home games, but this really was miserable.
I'm not saying The Seahawks didn't have their problems, like Holmgren showing once again that he melts down during the big game, but their momentum, their chances and even some scores were taken away from them by the refs.
Also, can you tell me why the Seahawks catch didn't count for a TD when the receiver caught the ball, put one foot in, had the ball cross the plane and then the other foot touch out of bounds? The out of bound foot hit well after the ball had crossed the plane and had hit the pilon, knocking it over. The pilon is considered in bounds.
OK, I agree with most of what you said, then you started on the punter and touchbacks.
"Gave up 60 yards" on punts going for touchbacks? If the coverage team had stopped the ball at the 10 yard line for those three punts, would you have said that the punting team "gave up" 30 yards? Why not? If he had tried to finesse the ball into the corner and the Steelers ended up with a big runback, would you have said they "gave up" the number of yards of the runback, and ask why the punter made the mistake of punting where he did? If you're going to count imaginary yards and scenarios, you have to count all of them.
Technically, they "gave up" 57 yards on punts, since perfect punt coverage results in the ball being downed by the punting team at the 1. (1 x 3 = 3, subtracted from 20 x 3)
You're right - the game was pretty boring, so much so that you're blaming the punter's touchbacks as a contributing factor to the Seahawks' loss. Wow.
Roethlisberger's TD: The replay call was correct. The play was so close, and the view of the ball was partially blocked by Ben's arm, that I don't think replay could have overturned any call, TD or not. The ref on the field, first ready to spot the ball, decided it had gotten in. Tough judgment call either way.
Holding: The fact that the announcers, including possibly the most annoying man to ever cover a game while having large ugly caterpillars replace his eyebrows, means nothing. I don't remember the comment and therefore don't remember the play. I just wanted to mention Madden's eyebrows.
Pushing off: I struggled with this at first, but on replay, he did push off. Was it a strong, knock you to the ground push? No. But right in front of the ref he push hid defender one way and moved the other to catch the ball. Dumb and done. Correct call.
No catch-fumble: Watch the replay...the only reason the Steelers did not recover that fumble before it went out of bounds was the play was whistled dead. This call, clearly the wrong one in my view, was in the favor of the Seahawks.
Pylon TD: I wonder about this one, too. If the pylon counts as in bounds as far as getting two feet in -as opposed to just being in bounds if the football contacts it- then this should have been a TD. I agree, his foot did hit the pylon. Possibly a bad call, but then why didn't Seattle challenge it? I do believe they had one left...
My Call on the refs: Everything that was replayed was called correctly. There was at least one bad call (the no catch/fumble) and it went to the Seahaws' favor. Possibly another that could have been challenged that went against them.
Refs get a B+ for staying out of the way.
Yeah, but he's still got to get his other foot down and in bounds for it to be a catch.
I don't know if the game was as poorly officiated as everyone says, if only because I couldn't bring myself to pay attention for most of the contest. (The trly terrible call was the holding penalty on the pass that would have brought the Seahawks to the 2 yard line.) What an awful, awful game, living proof that a close game can be a bad game. Sloppy play all around, it was low scoring not because of good defense but just because of terrible execution.
I've been a big defender of parity in the NFL but this season has really made it harder for me. Was there ever a time in this game that you said to yourself "Man, these are some great teams"? I got the feeling in this year's playoffs that the team that would win would be the team that sucked the least, and I think thats what we got. I can't look at this Steeler's team and think that they clearly rose above the competition.
But we hear so often that the instant the ball crosses the plane, it is a TD. Doesn't matter if he drops it a split second after, doesn't matter if it is stripped. The receiver clearly had posession, his foot hit the pilon, which is in bounds, so when he crossed the plane he was in bounds and demonstrated control.
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