Thank you, King, for your brilliant takedown of the bogus storyline that the refs handed the Super Bowl to the Steelers. I'd grown increasingly frustrated over the past two days as this myth congealed into received wisdom, and I'm pleased that you and and other commentators are knocking it down. The fact is this: from the coachers to the team the Steelers outplayed the Seahawks when the game was on the line.

Here's my advice to the Seattle whiners and the chuckleheads from ESPN (you know who you are) who are crying about the refs and deflecting blame for 1) Holmgren's and Hasselbeck's strange playcalling at crunchtime, 2) dropped passes, 3) bad defensive plays, and 4) atrocious clock-management at the end of both halfs: If bitching about how the zebras gave the game to the Steelers helps you sleep during the next rainy six months then by all means wallow as much as you like. But please, keep the pity party to yourselves.

What a bunch of whiny sore losers.

... i'm proud. Five Lombardi Trophies in 40 years. That's not bad. One every 8 years on average if you're scoring at home. The other super bowls had some controversial calls as well., but they'll be forgotten just like this one. They always are. You aren't trying to further discussion on anything by the way. You're just being belligerent about some calls that didn't go your way while refusing to believe that many people saw things differently than you. How could they do such a thing? Go count your articles, I'm gonna try to catch some of the parade.

Darn it, I just have to say it…

Shut up, shut up, shut up, SHUT UP! I'm a Seahawks fan, and I’m upset and I'm going to talk about it. If that's what you call whining, then call it that! It’s only two freaking days since the Super Bowl, for crying out loud.

If you don’t want to hear it, read it, see it, then turn off our radio stations, get off our message boards, and flip off our TV stations. That’s our turf—if you don’t like it, don’t go there (I’m only coming here to tell you to not drag our stuff-- message boards, our welcome home rallies, our collective commiserating-- on to your national stage).

And acknowledge that a whole lot of those “whining” about the refs aren’t Seattle fans at all, but sportwriters and fans of other teams that had nothing themselves to gain from Seattle winning. And that our players themselves are not the whiners here—they’ve handled this whole thing with admirable class, as they have the whole season.

Don't pretend for a second that if "your" team had lost this way that you wouldn't be grousing on your message boards too. Give me a break. Seattle doesn't have a lock on this. Check out any team message board that exists for any team on the planet (even the Plunkville High School Chess Team) after a loss. There are always people "whining" and crying foul. It's a way of dealing and getting over it.

At least three marginal penalties were called on the Seahawks at extremely critical points in the game that inarguably impacted the game's momentum. Calls that could have just as validly been not called as called. THAT’S what is frustrating, and some of the other commenters here hit that on the head.

We KNOW the Seahawks made a ridiculous amount of mistakes, completely uncharacteristic of the play we fans saw all year. What’s upsetting is what we can’t control-- the rules that are applied so damn arbitrarily. Can’t some sort of indisputable standards be set, so that the players and fans actually know what a penalty is and isn’t? (probably impossible, but one can always hope for an ideal). Otherwise, it leaves endless, hopeless questioning about “what if?” And you’ve got to admit, this wasn’t clean—there were a whole lot of what ifs.

Clear wins by the other team can be accepted, dubious wins like this are not so easy to swallow. If a typical loss is like a two day stomach flu, this one is like Ebola—it’s going to take us a little bit longer to get over it.

I'm not saying that there was a conspiracy but could somebody find the last game where a team lead in net yards gained, time of possesion, turnovers, and return yards and still lost. And not only lost, but lost by more than one score.

I couldn't find one from this year, but I'm sure somebody can turn something up.

I just don't buy this Steeler's team as being a great team. I don't think anyone can argue that they are. The whole "If Ben wasn't hurt we'd have been 13-3" is just nonsense, because a) you don't know that and b) you can make that claim about any team, ever. If the Patriots hadn't had half their team get rocked by injuries this year, do you think the Steelers would have even made it to the Super Bowl? Or did you forget that they worked you, at home, again this season? Saying it would've been different if not for injuries is a claim any team can make.

As far as my composition skills go, all I can do is trust my Masters in English from Brown.

Dear King,

I think your points are all true. I don't feel that any of the calls in the game were technically incorrect. And I'm sure replays will make at least a persuasive case for many of the calls.

I do feel however that the calls were inconsistent and BY FAR benefitted the Steelers. The actual numbers I believe were 20 yards of penalties for the Steelers vs. 70 yards for the Seahawks. A 50 yard handicap is enough to change the game significantly if the penalties are on random plays. But the 70 yards of penalties against the Seahawks came at such critical moments during the game... That I think is really why so many fans are upset. I would also like to point out that in addition to phantom or ticky-tack calls against the Seahawks, I noticed a number of points during the game in which there was an obvious hold that should have been called against the Steelers but wasn't.

I make no attempt to guess at the motives of the officals. For all I know, the head line judge had color-blindness issues involving green-blue and yellow and black. I am certainly not a fan of either of these teams. I root for the Bucs, and when they're not in the Superbowl, I just generally hope for an exciting big game. And in this big game I felt that the victim of the zebra robbery was really the fans. They were robbed of an exciting finish. I don't know if the Seahawks could have pulled it off on a level playing field... and I never will. And that's really too bad.

Sincerely,

-Jack