Seattle, all your TD's and momentum are belong to US!
Posted on 02/07/2006 6:58:40 PM PST by bikepacker67
As fans continued to weigh in on calls by officials during the Super Bowl, a group has set up an online petition claiming the "NFL is fixed."
The petition, at http://new.petitiononline.com/nfl12006/petition.html, says "We, the fans of the NFL, will no longer stand by and allow our pure game to be corrupted by blatant bias."
The petitions ask fans for suggestions on how the problem can be fixed.
Seahawks fans are voicing outrage over what they say were game-robbing calls by officials in the Super Bowl.
In one, Darrell Jackson was called for pushing Chris Hope away as he broke to catch Matt Hasselbeck's pass in the back of the end zone. Replays showed Jackson extended his arm, but Jackson argued vainly there was no push involved. Seattle settled for a 47-yard field goal and a 3-0 lead -- instead of a 7-0 one.
Later, referees ruled that Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger got the ball to touch the goal-line plane on his 1-yard score with 1:55 left, which put the Seahawks behind for good, 7-3.
Referee Bill Leavy upheld the call after a replay review. Holmgren then upbraided Leavy on his way off the field at halftime.
Holmgren walked over to Leavy, a fifth-year referee calling his first Super Bowl, and could be seen angrily telling him, "It wasn't even close."
The second half brought more Seahawks frustration.
Officials flagged first-year starting right tackle Sean Locklear for holding when Stevens did finally catch a pass, a 17-yard grab at the Steelers 2 with 12:11 left and Seattle trailing 14-10. On the next play, Casey Hampton bowled through Pro Bowl blockers Robbie Tobeck and Steve Hutchinson for a sack.
One play after that, Hasselbeck threw his game-breaking interception to doom Seattle's last chance of the game and of a suddenly lost season.
At a welcome home celebration at Qwest Field on Monday, Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren took a shot at the Super Bowl officials, saying he knew the game was going to be tough, but he didn't know the Hawks were going to have to play the guys in the striped shirts as well.
Tin foil hats on please.
http://www.petitiononline.com/mondays/petition.html
The Algore Syndrome
I would really like to see your evidence to back up the claim that sports are fixed. Bad calls do not equal evidence. bad calls happen in all levels of sport.
I'm a lifelong Patriots fan (I sat on the aluminum benches at Shaefer Stadium) and I think the '01 Pats were fixed to give America a nice warm feeling after 9/11
Its a game. As long as there are human refs, there will be questionable calls. Were there any horrible calls? No. Just several questionable ones that went Pittsburgh's way. It's over, Pittsburgh won, or more accurately, Seattle lost it.
the steelers needed some help to win the game and they got it from the refs. after all, you can't have ALL that hype going into the game and then turn around and lose to little old seattle. that just wouldn't be right.
It's time to have published ratings for the officials. Each crew should be rated by the league coaches and any that don't maintain a minimum satisfaction rating should be canned. Any refs that are deemed to have decided games improperly should get ONE warning and one second chance, for a disciplinary period of three years. If in doubt, don't throw the stinking flag.
The league should cut to four officials per game. Too many refs equals too many flags. A head ref, a lineman, and back judges each side of the line.
And league officials should take over replay, one in the booth and one at league headquarters. No more on field refs botching replays to cover for their crews.
I can give an easy 6 to 12 games I watched that were decided by poor refs. Atl/NO, NO/StL, Sea/NYG, GB/Cle, GB/TB, second GB/Det, Det/TB, (PLAYOFFS) Den/NE, the Super Bowl, and throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Pittsburgh while at Indy. Now those are just the games I watched that had bad refs. I'll bet there were scads more.
We all saw baseball cheat last year. Now it's the NFL.
Ugh. Come on, man. Seattle got screwed by the refs--but even if those points hadn't been taken away, the Steelers still would've won. It just would've been a closer game.
That is because every city outside of Los Angeles is insane. LA may be the land of fruits and nuts, but when it comes to pro teams, we don't screw around.
Our take: How much will you pay us to let you have a team here? Not only will we not let them tax us a dime, we expect them to butress OUR treasury.
Admittedly, it is one of the few things we have done right.
There are serious questions regarding its legitimacy.
And that is a death knell for competitive sport.
You sound like a communist.
It's a game folks. Lighten up. Steelers won. Seattle lost. Over and done.
Fantastic!!!!
Seriously. The officiating just continues to get worse and worse on levels of football, from High School, College, to Pro.
BTW, the NFL has nothing when compared the NBA at fixing game outcomes. Who can remember in the 2004 playoffs when the Lakers hit a three point shot against the Spurs with two-tenths of a second left? Impossible , but not if you have a league clock operator that doesn't start the shot clock on time. Thus the Lakers (large TV market) go to the finals.
Dude. Time to move on.
Steelers vs Bears---Steelers win 21-9
Steelers vs Vikings---Steelers win 18-3
Steelers vs Browns---Steelers win 41-0
Steelers vs Lions--Steelers win 35-21
Steelers vs Bengals--Steelers win 31-17
Steelers vs Colts--Steelers win 21-18
Steelers vs Broncos--Steelers win 34-17
Steelers vs Seahawks--Steelers win 21-10
All these were fixed, huh? Steelers aren't worthy champions, huh? The Seahawks lost. Get over it.
If the NFL wanted to fix the game I think they would have rather had the Seahawks win.
I think bad officiating has infected the entire league.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.