Posted on 02/06/2006 8:53:10 AM PST by highlander_UW
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.
Nonsense. Cooler heads will prevail, and all anyone will remember in five years -- other than that the Steelers won -- will be Parker's 75-yard TD run and the Randel-El to Ward TD pass.
Well, if you don't think Dungee's son's suicide was a distraction to the entire Colts' team, along with the fact that Indianapolis hadn't played an actual game for a month, then you're not all that intelligent yourself.
That goon kept giving the Steelers breaks by repeatedly kicking the ball into the end zone.
Then, at least once, he kicked a line drive to be returned. He was a bum last night............... thanks.
The Steelers played well in December and January. They sucked the rest of the season, and in February.
The Steelers have received onslaught's of bad calls before and nobody rioted. Remember the players have to call the coin flip before the throw now because of a bad call that cost the Steelers a game, one in a series that year that functionally cost the Steelers a playoff birth, no riots.
And to think that I stupidly posted right before the game.....
"This game is going to be an epic." ---- GAG
;-)
You might have a point if Dungy didn't have a long history of under coaching in the playoffs. Their playoff loss this year wasn't significantly different in their performance than their playoff loss last year, or the year before, or for the Bucs while Dungy was in Tampa. Some coaches just aren't playoff coaches, and while I like Dungy, and respect him, and felt a certain kinship with him because I lost a good friend the same day his son died, he has established himself as not a playoff coach.
----
Yep, that was a real bad call.
well then, Seattle got another break there then, right? That looked like a penalty should be assessed to me.
The Steelers had about five calls seemingly go against them, and Seattle had maybe about the same or more. All this whining about the refs is lamentable.
****
I'll say one thing............. offensive "holding" (linemen) should be redefined in the rule book ........ and they should also allow the defensive backs and others to hit the receivers until the ball is in the air ........ like they were permitted before Mel Blount and a couple others' overwhelming play turned rules on pass reception into a ticky tack activity.
And..... now that I'm thinking, an easy way to SEE and call a TD is to just write into the rules that a player who possesses the ball must have his armpits above or over the goal line. I can see it now ...... The Armpit Rule.
Armpits, you say? Yes, the armpits are easy to see from most camera angles. This sticking out your arms with the ball in your hands is bogus.
So I guess the "two feet inbounds" rule goes out the window?
Now, now! An overstatement..... the Seahawks were only 4 point underdogs.
I don't mind the "5-yard rule", but it needs to be consistent, i.e., no defensive pass interference unless it's more than 5 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. I've seen way too many times where a DB or LB gets flagged when making their otherwise legal "chuck" just because the QB releases on a fast 3-step drop.
I'd also like to see more emphasis on allowing defenders the right to their own position -- if a receiver changes his route and comes back through the defender, it should be offensive pass interference. Too many teams are intentionally underthrowing receivers to pick up cheap pass interference calls because the defender is playing the receiver correctly.
Man, I have never seen this much whining after a loss. Were there bad calls? Probably. Did they affect the outcome of the game? No. Dropped passes, missed field goals and dismal clock management affected the game. In addition, as I posted on an earlier thread, SEA didnt utitlize the league MVP. Quit whining and get them next year, sheesh..
my butt.
;-)
And that really used to be the knock on Cowher, as well -- that his coaching style didn't work in the playoffs. He was more flexible this year, and the results showed. Hopefully, Dungy will learn, and we'll see a PIT/IND AFC championship game next year that is a lot less ugly than the conference semi was this year.
LOL ......... maybe.
The Gaza Strip District.
Hey Petronski, where are the Pittsburghers to see this one?
*****
http://www.neighborsinthestrip.com/
This article is a crap diatribe designed to bring publicty to the writer.
It does the NFL a complete disservice.
At least he mentions the most oft argued play (Rothlesberger's touchdown) was a touchdown. It matters NOT where one is when you hit the ground. It is IF and on ly IF the nose of the ball breaks the plane of the white line that is the end zone, not the color beyond, and NOT where you are when you hit the ground!
The nose broke the plane in the air, and R was hit back, then reextended his arms and the ball well over the line.
Fact is, in the air, he crossed and was pushed back. If a running back jumps in the air, breaks the plane, and then is hit in mid air back on the 3 yard line...it is still a touchdown...as it matters not where you land!
The Seahawk receiver obtained an advantage by pushing off the Steeler defender. Penalty. You have to create your OWN separation, you cannot use a player to establish it. If he had NOT pushed off...he would not have gotten to that pass.
This writer is bum! and I would bet he has NOT OFFICIATED in his life.
I have worked three sports (not football, and not professional level, though definitely competitively in softball and volleyball).
The holding call was legit. You could see 53 for Pittsburgh being held coming around the outside, and he still almost got to Hasselbeck.
You gotta call that. The OL was beat, and he held. His fault, not the officials.
We all could see it on the replay. Most guys were probably looking at each other and hollering.
;-)
Cheese with your Whine?
It does not have to move the DB. The receiver used the push off to get separation...can't do that. He would not have gotten to the ball without using the defender as a goal post push off either.
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