While I was watching a football game this season, the officials called holding on the home team that caused a touchdown to be called back. An aquaintance gambler with an obvious financial interest in the call turned to me and angrily asked me "Was there holding on the play?". I said, "I don't know." I paused for affect, smiled and then said "Did they hike the ball?"

Yes you can call holding on every play. Just like in the NBA where you could call traveling just about everytime someone is heading for the basket. Rules that are enforced some of the time make the referees look even worse.

Your letter is just more proof that more officials and a better replay system would mean nothing when the decisions will continue to be made by human beings. King says he saw the touchdown one way. You say another. Ron Jaworski on NFL Primetime said it was a touchdown too as do many others. An equal amount think it wasn't. The stupidest idea I've seen today is that some people think that something could ever change this phenomenon.

i've already deleted the game off my DVR. don't want to keep replaying it.

i may have seahawks goggles on, but i do not remember it that way.

i saw the judge with a foot at least six inches from the goal line trot toward the pile and then signal touchdown on his way. i have no idea if he actually changed his mind or not, but i am saying that in my recollection he did not signal touchdown from the sideline, but rather on his way towards the pile. which to me gives the impression that it was not a definitive decision. the decision happened between the sideline and the pile and something made him overrule his foot.

is it baseball-like that a tie goes to the offense? that was the point of my argument--who has the burden of proof? it's the refs' whim to make the offense or defense challenge by making or not making the call.

at any rate, if someone still has the video and sees that my recollection is totally clouded, lemme know. i'd rather hear that then some reporter somewhere mentioned they saw it differently. a lot of these reporters these two days have been worse than the refs.

According to Holmgren the poor clock management was the result of audibles called by Hasselbeck.

In fact the Steelers played much more poorly than the Seahawks, but they got a lift from a few individual efforts.

The league rules on the crossing the goal line are so convoluted that when Jackson caught that pass, with one foot in bounds, and crossed over at the pylon I thought he had scored. He had the ball, he was inbounds, and the ball crossed the line? When Ben scored his TD, the ball did not cross the goal line, it touched the goal line, perhaps, however strange it may seem, it was not a score.

In praise of the officials this was the worst officiated game I watched all season. Perhaps it is the only game I watched which was won by a team which didn't deserve the win.

Then there is the matter of plain vanilla Mike, who should be banned from coaching until he submits to a series of testosterone treatments. In defense of his coaching style, he gave his town their first Superbowl team, and Seattle fans did not turn up for the game, but who in the heck wants to leave Seattle in February to travel to Detroit.

In previous Superbowls the officials let them play, just not this year, and the play was as tired as Mick Jagger and the Stones.

Seahawks - and NFL integrity -- were mugged in Detroit. It appears that the NFL allowed the Steal Curtain unlimited do-overs until the Bus got a ring. Forget the fact that the portly one couldn't score from the 1-yard line. Should call him The Bust. This really stinks. Yuk. The league can fix this: How about another game?

The ball doesn't have to cross the goal line. The entire goal line is in the end zone. All the ball has to do is break the plane of the line where the green of the field meets the white of the goal line.

King, I know you thought this was a good article, it passed your editor, got published and was already recieving responses... but I've noticed you commited a minor infraction for offensive pass interference. You'll have to pull the entire article and try writing it again. This is a non-reviewable call, by the way. Hey, that's the breaks.

Let's see:

Steve Young, Michael Irvin, Brian Baldinger... and even John Madden disagree with you. John Madden? Wow.

Oh, and practically everyone else who saw the game.

ESPN has it at 78%. Even the guy who covered my bet wouldn't take my money, not even when I insisted. And in truth, I wouldn't have been able to take his either.

The best and most honest article on the subject is here:

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/5310192#

And, no, that's no the definition of a push off. There was handfighting, the contact was initiated by Hope, and Jackson, dealing with a larger opponent interfering with him, was more disengaging than pushing off. Sorry that, unlike everyone else, you're having a hard time understanding that.

And you're being misleading with your precisely eleven points. And I think you know it.

It's no myth that the refs stole this one. Why, I don't know. Can't say.

It's true the Seahawks played poorly; so did the Steelers - with one brilliant, laudable exception.

But that's not what decided the game.

It's unforunate you can't understand that professional athletes try to be publicly gracious whatever they may actually feel, especially when they could get fined.

But, then, you seem to have problems understanding much of anything else, perhaps blinded by your desire to write a clever article.

And it's not just part of the game.

Put it this way, If I were to bet on a horserace - I'd be a fool to do so, but nevermind that for a moment - and my horse stumbled or the jockey fell off, well, I'd have to accept that as part of the game. But if a circus clown ran onto the track in front of my horse...

Five clowns ran onto field on Sunday.

And I think I've found a sixth.