Super Bowl XL

[mike546 0]

How the hell are the Cowboys 10-1?

[Guest Wart]

"the league said Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2006 that no mistakes were made by the game officials"

 

Even the Hasslebeck 'block'?

[snuffbox 0]

Definitly the right call.

[dh86 0]

"the league said Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2006 that no mistakes were made by the game officials"

 

Even the Hasslebeck 'block'?

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

The column that I think speaks best to all this "controversy" (lame!), by my favorite sports columnist, Salon's King Kaufman.

 

The myth: Seahawks wuz robbed

 

Feb. 7, 2006 | A neat little mythology has already grown up around Sunday's Super Bowl. Within 24 hours of the final gun, the myths had already hardened into cold reality, apparently accepted as fact by a good portion of the football-watching public, which on Super Bowl Sunday pretty much means everybody.

 

The myth is "The Seahawks Got Robbed by the Officials."

 

Reality is often a little less exciting than mythology. The reality is the Super Bowl was a poorly officiated game. Having watched all or significant parts of more than 100 NFL games this season, I wouldn't call the officiating Sunday unusually bad. It was on the poor side of average. It didn't cost the Seahawks the game.

 

Reality is that the real problem isn't that on-field officials are incompetent or on the take. There's no reason to believe that NFL officials are not the best in the world at what they do. The real problem here is that NFL fans have lost their confidence in the zebras. They no longer believe in the ability or integrity of the men charged with policing the game.

 

The NFL can deal with this problem, put a Band-Aid on it or ignore it. We can all guess which it will do. I'm betting on the Band-Aid, and on the problem continuing.

 

The reality is that the NFL needs to rationalize its rules to rid them of the welter of inconsistencies that confuse and frustrate officials and fans alike, and fix the instant replay system that robs officials of their decisiveness by encouraging them to make the reviewable call, rather than the right one. An official robbed of his decisiveness is also robbed of his authority and effectiveness.

 

But back to the Myth of the Seahawks Getting Robbed by the Officials.

 

Seattle didn't lose because of dropped passes, blown coverages or a key interception, the myth says. The Seahawks didn't lose because they let Willie Parker run 75 yards for a touchdown without being breathed on or because they squandered precious time and scoring opportunities in both two-minute drills. The Seahawks' loss wasn't the result of the Pittsburgh Steelers taking advantage of Seattle's mistakes by making the big plays at key moments.

 

No. They lost, according to the myth, because the officials wanted the Steelers to win, and called the game accordingly. Or, less ominously -- and less ridiculously -- the officials were swayed by the pro-Steelers crowd.

 

It's a reality that the Steelers benefited from more bad calls than the Seahawks did, and bigger ones too. But the Seahawks got a gift or two.

 

And more important, it's a reality that the Seahawks lost because they played poorly. The Steelers didn't exactly cover themselves in glory either, but the Seahawks made the bigger mistakes.

 

The Seahawks admitted that Monday.

 

"If a team just goes out and overpowers you, then you're like, 'Hey, we got beat,'" said defensive lineman Rocky Bernard. "But I think we beat ourselves."

 

I think so too. And I'm not the only one.

 

We lost the football game and we lost it because of the reasons you lose most games," coach Mike Holmgren said, "mistakes."

 

Then he told the crowd at a Qwest Field rally, "We knew it was going to be tough going up against the Pittsburgh Steelers. I didn't know we were going to have to play the guys in the striped shirts as well."

 

Maybe he changed his mind there. Or maybe he was just pandering to the home crowd. Holmgren's a smart guy. He knows why his team really lost.

 

The biggest tall tale from Sunday's game involves the offensive interference penalty in the end zone against Seattle's Darrell Jackson. That call negated an apparent touchdown with two minutes left in the first quarter. The Seahawks eventually settled for a field goal and a 3-0 lead.

 

It's become gospel that back judge Bob Waggoner only threw his flag after Steelers safety Chris Hope turned to him and begged for it. I've read descriptions of Waggoner looking hesitant, confused, as though he had made up his mind to not call anything, but changed it on seeing the result of the play.

 

Jackson's clear pushoff is also being described variously as ticky-tack, slight or, in some circles, nonexistent. Jackson claims he never even touched Hope.

 

Never touched him!

 

Here's what happened: Hope was covering Jackson as he tried to get open in the end zone while quarterback Matt Hasselbeck scrambled. They ended up momentarily standing still, facing the line of scrimmage. After a little hand fighting -- perfectly legitimate by both men -- Jackson reacted to the throw by planting his right hand on the front of Hope's shoulder pads and extending his arm.

 

Hope was straightened up by the push, and actually took a little hop in the opposite direction from the force of it. That allowed Jackson to get separation -- the very definition of a pushoff.

 

Waggoner, far from looking hesitant, far from waiting for Hope's protest, was already reaching for his flag as Jackson hit the ground with the football, having made the catch while going down. The replay from behind the end zone clearly shows that. There was no hesitation. Waggoner whiffed on the flag, looked down to find it in his belt, then reached for it again and threw it. Hope's protest didn't start till after the first whiff.

 

Should it have been called? Was it ticky-tack? I don't think so. Does that kind of thing go uncalled in the NFL? Sure. Everything does, but I think those who say that penalty never gets called are exaggerating wildly. If Waggoner had called touchdown, Steelers fans would have gone out of their minds, and they would have been right.

 

Receivers often push off and get away with it when they and the defender are both moving. But standing still -- they were bouncing on their toes but otherwise not moving around -- five feet in front of an official? No. I keep hearing people say they see this play several times a game with no flag ever flying.

 

Send me links, folks, send me video clips. Burn a DVD of these plays and send it to Salon's San Francisco office.

 

The Jackson play was just one of the complaints of Seahawks fans. Another was the holding penalty on Sean Locklear early in the fourth quarter that wiped out a completion to Jerramy Stevens that would have set up first-and-goal at the 1 for Seattle, then down 14-10.

 

Was that holding? Well, with apologies to John Madden, who said he didn't see Locklear clamping down on Clark Haggans' arm, yeah. Was it the kind of holding penalty that gets ignored all the time? Absolutely. It was also the kind that gets called all the time. Haggans had beaten Locklear to the outside, and had a clear path to the quarterback when he was pulled off-balance by the blocker.

 

Holding calls are pretty random. If I were a Seahawks fan I'd be steamed about that one. If I were a Steelers fan and that penalty hadn't been called, I'd have been steamed too.

 

There were other bad and disputable calls. One of them was on that very same play, when Locklear was flagged for holding. Haggans appeared to be offside, and Seattle center Robbie Tobeck has said he thought so.

 

I've slowed the replay down over and over, and I can't decide. Haggans definitely moved before his teammates did, and may have been moving before the snap, but I can't tell if he was in the neutral zone at the snap. But it's the kind of thing that usually earns an offside flag, deserved or not.

 

The same thing happened on the next play, when Casey Hampton sacked Hasselbeck. Haggans again moved early, though on this one I'm pretty sure he stayed on the defensive side of the ball before the snap. Again, most of the time, that early movement draws a flag.

 

The illegal cut-block penalty on Hasselbeck during an interception return was clearly a mistake, since Hasselbeck was making a play on the ballcarrier, in which case hitting low is legal.

 

On the other hand, Seahawks defensive lineman Bryce Fisher ran down Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger on an interception return and sent him sprawling with an illegal block in the back, which went uncalled.

 

The Seahawks scored their only touchdown with a short field following that interception return. If they'd have been backed up to the 50, they might not have. Remember that when you hear Seahawks fans confidently saying their team was robbed of exactly 11 points -- the exact margin of victory -- by the calls against Jackson and Locklear.

 

Seahawks fans are also complaining about Roethlisberger's touchdown run, when he may or may not have broken the plane of the goal line with the ball. Replay upheld the touchdown call. I think the replay showed the call was correct, but I could be convinced otherwise. Anyone who says he sees definitive proof of touchdown or no on any of the angles we've seen so far is either partisan or a liar.

 

I don't mean to come off sounding like a Steelers fan, defending the legitimacy of my team's win. I had no rooting interest in the game, and when that's the case I tend to root for West Coast teams that aren't the San Francisco 49ers (personal issues there), and underdogs, which means Seattle twice. But I honestly found myself not caring who won as I watched the game.

 

I also don't mean to sound like an apologist for the officials or the league, which will no doubt fine Holmgren for saying what most of its fans outside of western Pennsylvania are thinking.

 

I think the NFL has a real problem with its officiating, and if anything good comes out of this disappointing Super Bowl, it would be the league's finally acknowledging that problem.

 

As I've written before, the problem is not that the men in the striped shirts are incompetent. That's a myth.

 

The reality is that the league's impossibly complicated, self-contradictory, counterintuitive hodgepodge of rules, combined with the constant second-guess of instant replay, have turned its officials into timid middle managers, fearful of acting decisively, forever holding committee meetings.

 

It's gotten so bad that the NFL has a growing public relations problem on its hands. The Super Bowl was the culmination of a postseason that saw fans hopping mad at the refs time and time again, most notably after the Steelers' win over the Indianapolis Colts, which was almost scuttled by a blown call that the league eventually acknowledged in an unusual move.

 

I suspect the league will respond to this problem the way it usually does, by talking it over in committee meetings -- the culture of bureaucracy filters down from the corporate suites to the field -- and then, if anything, pulling out that Band-Aid, placing some fix on top of the existing rules. Maybe an extra level of review, letting teams challenge penalties like the interference call on Jackson.

 

So, one more thing to complicate matters, one more reason for the officials not to act decisively.

 

What the NFL needs is full reform, a rationalization of the rules. Give the officials fewer things to remember. Give them the power to make calls decisively. If you want accountability, try a college-style review system, where the booth decides what to review, then quickly does so.

 

Somehow, despite the supposed lack of marquee names and teams, this Super Bowl got near-record ratings. Instead of talking about that, the NFL finds the public and the commentariat talking about the officiating. And if the league doesn't do something real about that officiating and the state of the rules, we'll be having this conversation again this time every year.

 

And with each passing year and each controversy, the myth of the incompetent, biased NFL referee will be harder and harder for the league to ignore. At that point, it might as well be reality.

[Vern Gagne 0]

The NFL can deal with this problem, put a Band-Aid on it or ignore it. We can all guess which it will do. I'm betting on the Band-Aid, and on the problem continuing.

 

"the league said Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2006 that no mistakes were made by the game officials"

 

That answers that question.

 

 

The Seahawks scored their only touchdown with a short field following that interception return. If they'd have been backed up to the 50, they might not have. Remember that when you hear Seahawks fans confidently saying their team was robbed of exactly 11 points -- the exact margin of victory -- by the calls against Jackson and Locklear.

 

What the hell is he talking about here? In the opinion of many people, the Seahawks were directly robbed of those 11 points.

[justcoz 0]

The NFL can deal with this problem, put a Band-Aid on it or ignore it. We can all guess which it will do. I'm betting on the Band-Aid, and on the problem continuing.

 

"the league said Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2006 that no mistakes were made by the game officials"

 

That answers that question.

 

 

The Seahawks scored their only touchdown with a short field following that interception return. If they'd have been backed up to the 50, they might not have. Remember that when you hear Seahawks fans confidently saying their team was robbed of exactly 11 points -- the exact margin of victory -- by the calls against Jackson and Locklear.

 

What the hell is he talking about here? In the opinion of many people, the Seahawks were directly robbed of those 11 points.

 

What he's saying is had the illegal block to Ben's back been called, Seattle'sinterception return would have been backed up to the 50 yd line. Seattle scored six points with the extra point following that interception return. Had that penalty been called they may not have scored from their 50 yd line. Those 11 points that people are crying about wouldn't have mattered if Seattle didn't score on that drive.

 

It's the same as people saying that Pittsburgh wouldn't have scored or attempted the Randle El-Hines reverse play had Pittsburgh's interception return not advanced 15 yards due to the illegal block call on Hassleback. People are saying those seven points were given to Pittsburgh thanks to that call so this writer is taking seven points from Seattle thanks to that particular missed call.

[Guest Vitamin X]

There are three mistakes which Seattle could have made up for, those being the two missed field goals as well as the interception by Hasselbeck (why is everyone having such a difficult time spelling his name, anyways?) in the Pittsburgh red zone, being down by 4 points in the 4th quarter. Even if he hadn't thrown that pick, they still could've kicked the field goal; Had Josh Brown been able to make THAT one at least. That MIGHT have prevented the bomb to Hines Ward that happened following the interception. And if it did, then all the Seahawks would've needed to do was kick a field goal when they were driving deep into Pittsburgh territory late in the game to win it. That's it.

 

And then we would have had the Pittsburgh fans complaining how THEY were robbed. Which is a sign that this game was just badly officiated, really. It just happened to be Pittsburgh benefitted the most from it.

 

But this point has really been driven home already, and I think most every rational person here accepts that as the truth, so let's just move on already from an entirely forgettable game. I still find it weird that the Steelers are world champions, I thought the Colts were supposed to be.. or the Patriots threepeating..

 

EDIT: And could you imagine the uproar this would have been had it been New England instead of Pittsburgh?

[Vern Gagne 0]

So was there a block in the back penalty on the interception return?

[Guest Vitamin X]

On the Herndon interception, yeah I think I did see one.

[The Czech Republic 0]

EDIT: And could you imagine the uproar this would have been had it been New England instead of Pittsburgh?

No uproar at TSM

[snuffbox 0]

EDIT: And could you imagine the uproar this would have been had it been New England instead of Pittsburgh?

No uproar at TSM

 

The divisional playoff thread would disagree with you.

[Guest Smues]

[nl5xsk1 0]

While I don't think that the refs were consciously and intentionally favoring the Steelers, I do think that Seattle's fans have a reason to be bitching. Pretty much every major call went against their team ... after waiting a lifetime to see your team in the Super Bowl, it'd suck ass to have them get screwed by shitty officiating.

 

EDIT: And could you imagine the uproar this would have been had it been New England instead of Pittsburgh?

Belichick wouldn't have called out the referees in the "well, we didn't win" parade, the way that Holmgren did. Then again, New England wouldn't have thrown a "well, we didn't win" parade in the first place.

 

No uproar at TSM

Unless I'm misinterpreting the quote (about the uproar if it was New England instead of Pittsburgh) I think there'd have been a shitload of uproar at TSM. The quote, as I read it, is basically saying that people would go ballistic if the Pats got help from the refs. And since this board has it's fair-share of Patriots haters, there'd have been plenty of people bitching & moaning that the Pats were given the unfair advantage. (VX, correct me if I'm misunderstanding your edit)

[nl5xsk1 0]

Anyways, who cares if they resign Alexander, the key thing for them to do is sign Steve Hutchinson who is a FA and probably the best LT in the history of the NFL .

baron, are you related to this guy or something? Talk about hyperbolic statements ... I sincerely doubt that Steve Hutchinson is the best LT in NFL history. I don't even know if I'm comfortable calling him the current best.

[The Czech Republic 0]

New England wouldn't have thrown a "well, we didn't win" parade in the first place.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/44616

[jwest27 0]

I also wouldn't call Hutchinson the best left tackle in history, since hes's actually a left guard.

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

Block in the back on Roethlisberger on the Herndon INT.

 

Proof that Ben scored (albeit barely)

[Gert T 0]

Yeah Ben got blocked in the back, but I think they held the flag since he probably could not have made the tackle.

 

The league has a huge problem with Holmgren's comments. Don't fine him you make the league and the refs look bad. However, since they didn't fine Joey Porter it would look hypocritical. I say fine him, just because coaches can't say that (for free at least!), even if to rally the fan base.

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

Technically, whether he can make the tackle or not doesn't matter, according to the rules.

[Vern Gagne 0]

He was pushed into Roethlisberger.

 

That does looks like a penalty on that return.

 

I never had a problem with the call on the field. I just think a holding penalty should of been called on that play.

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

He was pushed into Roethlisberger.

 

By what, a rocket?

[Gert T 0]

Let's just say congrats to Pittsburgh and pretend like this post-season never happened!

 

Seriously though I hope they don't send Cincinnati out to Heinz for that Thursday night game to start the year. Save that for a MNF game later in the year so #9 will be healthy. I'm guessing they'll go with Denver-Pittsburgh to start out the year.

 

Maybe NY Giants or San Diego-Seattle on MNF. Seattle doesn't have a lot of attractive home games.

[snuffbox 0]

The refs were absolutely 100% perfect in that game. They were not unlike Jesus Christ Himself.

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

Actually, I just showed a picture of where they weren't perfect. But, keep up the good work!

[The Czech Republic 0]

The refs were absolutely 100% perfect in that game. They were not unlike Jesus Christ Himself.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ARE YOU DENSE OR SOMETHING. NOBODY IS SAYING THAT.

 

Let's summarize your involvement here:

 

 

"The refs really gave that game to Pittsburgh."

"I'd say Seattle blew it themselves."

"OKAY FINE. I GUESS THE REFS ARE PERFECT."

"I didn't say that. I said that Seattle could've won the game but made errors."

"GEE WHO'S THE BIG STEELERS FAN NOW? DIDN'T KNOW THE REFS WERE PERFECT!"

"They weren't, but they didn't decide the game."

"PSH YEAH WHATEVER. BUT I GUESS YOU THINK THEY WERE PERFECT!"

"Noooo, I said that in spite of poor officiating, Pittsburgh still deserved to win."

"OKAY I GET IT THE REFS ARE PERFECT I GET IT GEEZ"

[The Man in Blak 0]

Wait, this discussion is still going on?

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

I've actually just been posting some pictures that vindicate the refs a bit. There's a whole bunch of Quicktime vids up on a website that I frequent which show some pretty questionable calls against the Steelers, and some interesting angles that show that Ben did score, there was OPI on Jackson (albeit slightly), etc.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Wait, this discussion is still going on?

Not really, Snuffy is just propping its corpse up Bernie's-style by repeating "OKAY I GUESS THE REFS MUST BE PERFECT" over and over.

[Slayer 0]

The girl from "No Rain" grew up to be a ref?