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Not nearly enough Candice Mic e for my taste.
that was funny. i thought all the bud ones were. the rest sucked ass.
although that ESPN one with all the sports in the city was neat i guess.
Not nearly enough Candice Mic e for my taste.
Hahahaha... Seattle! I'll never root for that piece of city to win anything after the way their got-ass fans cheered when Tim got hurt in game 6.
check yer pmNot nearly enough Candice Mic e for my taste.
I thought about that too. Nice to see the spirits of Karma punish them. I'm sure they are happy as long as they have an official to blame.
yeah, a field goal.they would have more than likely scored on the next down being an inch away, but
Would've totally changed the game.
Seattle got jobbed, just like in the Finals of 96.
pretty much my sentimates.I don't think the refs did a very good job. There were a lot of flags that were thrown when they should have just let them play.
Did the ball break the plane on the Big Ben TD? You could never clearly tell but it was too close to overturn the TD call.
The DJax offensive PI was a weak call. A one hand nudge before the ball was even close is a weak call. The defender flopped and drew it.
That holding call on Seattle was BS. Should have been Seahawks ball at the one. He hit him and the guy stumbled. There wasn't any holding involved.
The call on Hasselbeck on the tackle might be the worst call I've ever seen. The guy gets called for a low block when he makes a tackle? WTF?
All told, Seattle got the short end of the stick when it came to the judgement calls, but they still didn't play well enough to earn a Super Bowl win. S. Alexander and Stevens played soft. The Steelers weren't much better but they came up with big plays when they needed it.
Except for the Big Ben touchdown.
That wasn't even close.
But, everyone wanted Pittsburgh to win so.......
You tell me, going into halftime, that game isn't way different, with it tied 3-3.
WAY different.
but what lost the game for Seattle, was their horrible management of the clock in the second quarter at the end. Pathetic.
BTW,
Philly and Seattle both lose on similar ways of play. Bad clock management.
AND BTW,
The NBA refs are getting just as bad, maybe already are as bad, so get the ready for it.
It's a good thing everybody wanted San Antonio to win.
???
I meant in can't get a call right form.
Watch the NBA, they are getting just as bad.
They can't get easy calls right, like the refs from the SB tonight.
, I listened to it on the radio, then saw highlights later and the Seahawks got screwed.
That blocking penalty is almost as bad as the jump ball foul call back in 98 on Avery Johnson VS Kevin Johnson.
Thats a new one.
You think Cower would have kicked a field goal?
I'm curious to know how different the game would have been if it had been tied at halftime. The Steelers come out and get a 75 yard touchdown, hit the trick play and win 14 to 10. That's not terribly different.
You whiney phucks. Stop complaining. Can't hear you regardless with the pacifier hangin outcha mouth!
I did not see Hines Ward push off, push off when?
It was shocking.
No way he cleared the line on that dive. That supposed "push off" was weak as too.
Basically, the refs sucked.
Would Seattle have won if the refs were better? Probably not, but we'll never know.
Would Seattle have won if the refs gave them the calls instead of the Steelers? Probably yes. Take away a TD from the Steelers, give one to Seattle and there you have it.
Something else that no one has mentioned yet is the D Jackson catch at the end of the 2nd. He had the left foot down, ball in hand, and kicked the pilon first w/ his right foot, and then w/ his left foot. That should have been a TD. Instead, they miss a 54 yd FG.
Terrible.
Last edited by Pistons < Spurs; 02-06-2006 at 10:24 AM.
I may be wrong...but I believe it was under 2:00 minutes...therefore had to be done by the officials.
The refs apparently wanted to see a happy ending for Jerome Bettis. Seattle was clearly the better team.
They probably should just declare the game a tie and give both teams a trophy to end all of this whining.
I'd agree that there were some bad calls in that game, but its disingenous to the game to suggest that the calls were the deciding factor in the end. Seattle had plenty of chances to overcome the bad calls:
--they had 1st and 20 at the Steelers' 26 after the Jackson push was called, but ran the ball twice for -3 yards and then threw an incomplete pass;
--they had 2nd and 10 at the Steelers' 40 after Jackson was called out of bounds, but ran for 4 yards and threw incomplete, settling for a long FG attempt while ending the half holding a timeout;
--they had 1st and 20 at the Steelers' 29 after the holding call on Locklear, but gave up a ridiculous sack to a guy who hadn't had a sack in 2 years, ran the ball on 2nd and 25, and then threw an interception.
In every cir stance, despite the calls, the Seahawks had plenty of opportunities to make up for the losses and score points. Each time, they seemed to just feel sorry for themselves and did nothing to take advantage of the opportunities that remained. That's not on the officials, that's on the Seahawks.
Seattle did get every bad call in the game...the refs were openly favorable to Pittsburgh....every media talking head agrees.
This was another horrible game because of the unfair officiating.
someones already got a pe ion going:
http://www.pe iononline.com/SBXLref/pe ion.html
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/5310192
Refs were far from Super in this one
This is the space where I get to crow about the frightening precision of my Super Bowl prediction.
Where I get to remind everyone that I guaranteed the Steelers would win the le after they beat the Colts. That they were the only championship-caliber team among the final four. That they would dismantle the Broncos in Denver and waylay whomever the NFC sent at them.
This is the space where I get to wag a finger at my colleague Ian O'Connor, with whom I'd waged a dueling columns battle of opposing prognostication. He picked the Seahawks and made a very strong case for them.
This is the space where I get to say, I told ya so. But I won't. I can't.
I've never felt so empty being right. I feel dirty. I wish I'd been wrong. The Steelers did not deserve to win this game. They were not the better team. O'Connor was right. Seattle was the better team.
So, Paul Tagliabue, how does a team lose when it outgains an opponent by 57 yards, controls time of possession and wins the turnover battle?
Like a crazed CIA analyst running through the halls of Langley screaming into open offices about some impending calamity, I've been shrieking hysterically about the terrible officiating in the NFL and warning that some day the brutal calls were going to affect the outcome of the Super Bowl.
That some day was Sunday.
Every single questionable, marginal or outright bad call went against the Seahawks.
Their first three big plays were all wiped out by penalty calls. On their second drive, Darrell Jackson caught an 18-yard pass on 3rd-and-6 that would have given Seattle a first down at the 23. But Chris Gray was called for holding James Farrior. When Farrior pushed upfield, Gray did hook him with his right arm, and Farrior went down. When referee Bill Levy flagged Gray, it was a bad omen for the Seahawks. Instead of being on the edge of the red zone, they came away without any points.
On their third drive, the Seahawks looked to take a 7-0 lead when Jackson separated from Chris Hope in the end zone and Matt Hasselbeck delivered a perfect strike to his outside shoulder. The back judge looked uncertain —sound familiar, Patriots fans? — then finally jerked his flag out and called offensive pass interference to wipe out the touchdown. The replay showed receiver and defender hand-fighting with Jackson getting the slightest push into Hope's chest before turning to catch the ball. ABC's John Madden thought the call was dubious. FOX analyst and all-time great offensive lineman Brian Baldinger had no doubts, calling it "absolutely horrendous" on his FOXSports.com Super Bowl Instant Analysis. ESPN's Steve Young and Michael Irvin also had no uncertainty, dismissing the call as ticky-tack and insisting the Seahawks got robbed of a TD.
Then came a huge call on the first play of the second quarter. Peter Warrick ripped off a 33-yard punt return to give Seattle the ball at the Steelers 46. But Etric Pruitt was called for holding. How clear was it? Well, Madden thought the call was for Pruitt holding the gunner at the beginning of the play. It wasn't. The flag came in during the runback and it looked pretty minor. Another example of an official searching to make a call.
So despite totally dominating the first 20 minutes of the game, the Seahawks led only 3-0.
Then came Pittsbugh's first touchdown. Whether you think Roethlisberger broke the plane of the goal line seems to depend on which team you were rooting for. The odd part was the line judge seemed to have determined that Big Ben had come up short as he ran in from the sideline. Since Roethlisberger had been pushed back well short of the goal line I don't know what he could have seen as he got closer to the pile that would have made him change his mind. But up went the arms. Had Roethlisberger been ruled short of the plane, that call would no doubt have stood too. But you figure the Black and Gold would have pounded it in from the two-inch line on fourth down so there's not that much here for Seattle fans to complain about except for the continuing storyline that every single call was going the Steelers' way. And the worst was yet to come.
The Seahawks were on the verge of taking a 17-14 lead early in the fourth quarter when officiating disaster struck. Hasselbeck had drilled a pass down the seam to Jerramy Stevens to set up first-and-goal at the one when suddenly Levy appeared in the middle of the screen to call the play back on account of holding on Sean Locklear. No less a source than newly-minted Hall of Famer John Madden came right out and said it was a bad call. This penalty was beyond ticky-tack. Baldinger called it "another terrible call" and added that the Steelers were offsides on the play. It was yet another official searching for a call, desperate to throw his flag, yearning to impact the action. Why, why, oh, why? That's 14 points the officials simply took away from the Seahawks. Incredible.
After a sack, Hasselbeck threw a pick and then was penalized 15 yards for making the tackle. I'm not kidding. The same thing happened in the Indy-Pittsburgh game in the regular season. It's like the officials become so discombobulated during the change of possession that they just randomly start throwing flags. The call was that Hasselbeck had thrown an illegal block below the waist on the return. Never mind that Hasselbeck wasn't trying to block anybody and did, in fact, make the tackle. Just another terrible call that cannot be reviewed in Paul Tagliabue's NFL.
The Steelers took quick advantage of their enhanced field position and just like that it was 21-10 Pittsburgh when it should have been 17-14 Seattle.
But the stripes weren't done.
First, they blew a fumble call on the field — of course against Seattle — before overturning it after replay. Then, with the Steelers trying to run out the clock, Levy granted Roethlisberger a timeout, even though the play clock clearly read zero before the quarterback signaled for time. It ended up being the final bad call in Seattle's coffin.
As Madden and Al Michaels watched the replay they shared a laugh about a similar bad non-call in an earlier playoff game between the Bears and Panthers. This is what it has come to: Announcers comparing the bad calls happening before them to the bad calls from earlier rounds of the playoffs. Is this really what the NFL wants?
With Cris Collinsworth lobbying for pass interference to be eligible for review on Inside the NFL after New England got jobbed in Denver; Joey Porter inveighing against the league after the game in Indy; Young and Irvin railing at halftime of the Super Bowl; Baldinger being spot-on with his Instant Analysis critique of the officials; and Madden and Michaels wondering aloud about the officiating during the game ... is anybody in the league office listening?
Or can we pretty much count on next year's playoffs being dominated by the officials too?
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/playof...t&lid=tab1pos2
Game's third team upstaged Steelers, Hawks
DETROIT -- Three weeks ago, after the Steelers held on to upset Indianapolis, Joey Porter was unhappy about the overturning of Troy Polamalu's fourth-quarter interception that could have sealed the win much earlier. Believing that deep down the league preferred Peyton Manning and the Colts to win, Porter publicly criticized the game officials, asking them not to "take the game from us."
Well, the Steelers can call it even now, as the officials who performed well enough throughout the season to earn the privilege of working Super Bowl XL performed Sunday as though they were trying to make it up to the Steelers by giving them the game -- not just any game, but the biggest game. And, yes, this time the other guys, the Seahawks, cried conspiracy, only not quite as loudly as Porter.
"You know, that's what happens when the world is against you," one Seahawk said after the 21-10 loss at Ford/Heinz Field. "No one wanted us to win. They wanted Jerome Bettis to win and go out a hero, and they got it."
Seattle had its share of goats: in particular, tight end Jerramy Stevens, who dropped four balls, and kicker Josh Brown, who missed two field-goal attempts. Almost to a man, the Seahawks pointed the blame finger at themselves for converting only one of three red zone attempts (when they had been the best in the league in that area, scoring a touchdown on 71.7 percent of their trips inside the 20-yard line); for allowing Ben Roethlisberger to improvise and complete a 37-yard pass to game MVP Hines Ward to the 1; for giving up a 75-yard touchdown run to Willie Parker; and for getting beaten by a trick play on Antwaan Randle El's pass to fellow receiver Ward for a touchdown, a first in Super Bowl history. If you read between the lines, though, they pretty much spelled out in bold letters that they had plenty of help in handing Pittsburgh its fifth Lombardi Trophy.
Namely, the boys in black and white.
"Those things are out of our control," Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said of the three major penalties that helped change the game completely. Not saying the outcome of the game would have been any different, but for sure it would have been a different game. "That's the way [the officials] called them," Hasselbeck continued. "The Steelers played well enough to win tonight, and we didn't. They should get credit. It's disappointing, it's hard, but what are you going to do?"
Here's what referee Bill Leavy's crew did, point blank: It robbed Seattle. The Seahawks could have played better, sure. They could have done more to overcome the poor officiating. We understand that those things happen and all, but even with all the points Seattle left on the field, there's a good chance the Seahawks would have scored more than the Steelers if the officials had let the players play.
In the biggest game of the year, the biggest game in sports, even, the officials were just a little too visible. In that regard, the Super Bowl provided a fitting conclusion to a postseason packed with pitiful performances by the game's third team. There were incorrect down-by-contact rulings in both NFC wild-card games; a touchdown that could have gone either way and should have gone the other way -- in favor of Tampa Bay -- in the Bucs' loss to the Redskins; the Patriots got no love in Denver in being hit with a bogus pass interference penalty and not catching a break on Champ Bailey's fumble at the goal line that looked as though it could have been a touchback; and, of course, the Polamalu play.
Still, what happened to the Seahawks wasn't the same as, say, New England going into Denver and playing badly (five turnovers) on top of the bad calls. Seattle gained almost 400 yards and turned it over just once.
You see, you can spend weeks -- and we did; two, in fact -- analyzing and dissecting matchups and giving each team the edge in certain areas and trying to figure out how the game is going to play out, but the two things you can't account for are turnovers and officials. The latter were the X-factor Sunday. Edge: Steelers.
It actually was a fairly clean game from a penalty standpoint, without a whole lot of yellow on the field -- 10 accepted penalties between the teams. Seven were against the Seahawks, though, a team that tied with Indianapolis for the second-fewest penalties (94) in the regular season. But those calls against the Seahawks stuck out like the Space Needle on the Seattle skyline.
Consider: The Seahawks lost 161 yards to penalties when you combine the penalty yards (70) and the plays the flags wiped out (91). By halftime alone, when it trailed 7-3, Seattle had had 73 hard-earned yards and a touchdown eliminated.
Hasselbeck hit Darrell Jackson with an apparent 16-yard scoring pass in the first quarter, but the play came back when Jackson was called for offensive pass interference. It was a touch foul. Jackson extended his arm, yes, but both players were fighting for position, and he didn't create any separation by doing so. It was like a referee calling a hand-check in a key moment of Game 7 of the NBA Finals.
The Seahawks had to settle for three instead of seven.
Still, that was early, and that one didn't change the game as much as did a holding call against Sean Locklear early in the fourth quarter with Pittsburgh leading 14-10. That one wiped out an 18-yard catch by Stevens that would have taken the ball to the 1. Locklear supposedly held Clark Haggans, so instead of first-and-goal at the 1 and the chance to complete a 98-yard touchdown drive and take a three-point lead, Seattle faced first-and-20 at the 29.
Three plays later, Ike Taylor picked off a Hasselbeck pass, and Hasselbeck went low to make the tackle on Taylor's return and was called for a 15-yard personal foul for a low block. The Steelers set up shop at their 44. That one right there made no sense.
Pittsburgh likes to run its trick plays in the middle of the field. Boom! Four plays later, from Seattle's 43, Randle El took a reverse and threw a sweet strike on the run to Ward. It was 21-10, and that was all she wrote. Everyone knows how important it is to play Pittsburgh with a lead or with the score tied. The Steelers don't lose when they're up by 11.
Eleven just so happens to be the total points taken away by bogus calls. Some penalties meant points; others meant field position. A holding call in the second quarter negated Peter Warrick's 34-yard punt return that would have started Seattle in Pittsburgh territory.
By contrast, the Steelers might have gotten a break on Roethlisberger's 1-yard touchdown plunge on third-and-goal in the second quarter. Leavy reviewed the play under the booth's orders, since it occurred inside the two-minute mark, and while still photos of an airborne Roethlisberger showed that the ball might have broken the plane of the goal line, he landed short of it and reached the ball over. It was close. Head linesman Mark Hittner didn't seem so sure of it, hesitating before signaling touchdown.
"I don't think he scored," Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren said.
It was that kind of evening for the Seahawks, who represent a town where residents know all too well that when it rains, it pours. If having what seemed like 90 percent of the 68,200 in attendance waving Terrible Towels wasn't enough to make Seattle feel as though it was playing on the road, the officials called it as though the Seahawks actually were.
Pittsburgh capitalized on its opportunities. And guys like Bill Cowher, Ward, Dan Rooney and The Bus are all very deserving of a championship -- and it's nice to see them win one -- but it would have been better had it not happened like this. It's like the Seahawks said: Not taking anything away from the Steelers, but keep it real.
"We had a touchdown taken away from us, the first one we scored," said Hasselbeck, who was measured in his words but clear in his frustration, "and then we had the ball at the 1-yard line, they called a penalty on us. That was unfortunate."
"I thought they were offside [on the play Locklear was called for holding]," center Robbie Tobeck said. "I thought we had a free play on because they had two guys come across. You know, that's the game. In a game, there's situations you have to overcome, and all night long we didn't do a good job of overcoming those things, and that's something we've done all year."
In the offseason, 31 teams will be back at the drawing board, evaluating what they need to do to knock off the Steelers in the fall. After the postseason they just had, Mike Pereira and the NFL's crew of officials would be wise to take a long, hard look at themselves. It's a real shame when, on the game's biggest stage, the major players aren't players at all. We saw too much of the third team in Super Bowl XL and not enough Seahawks and Steelers.
Michael Smith is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
It's just a bunch of whining. I'll take Hasselbeck's word over that of columnists who never played the game. Seattle could have overcome bad calls, but didn't. Champions survive adversity and get the job done. Seattle didn't get the job done despite ample opportunity to do so. End of story.
That's ridiculous. The refs CLEARLY gave this game to Pittsburgh. How many times should the Seahawks have to overcome bad calls? Why didn't the Steelers have to overcome any bad calls? To call this whining is disingenuous.
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