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.
You see, it's silly statements like this that invalidate your comments. It should read, where there bad calls, ABSOLUTELY...and they quite possibly changed the result of the game.
As a fan of course I'd like my team to win, but if they lose fair and square that's the way it goes. If they lose because the refs are taking the game away from them, well that I don't find as cool. Call stating the facts whining if you wish, but it's not only Seahawk fans that saw how horrific the officiating was.
First let us disassociate the team names, to get the emotion out of the equation. Does not matter who won or lost.
Then start looking at the point spreads and overlay bad or questionable calls on this info.
It will start to raise eyebrows when you see the results.
I remember AL Michaels would even comment on the point spreads occasionally after something would happen on MNF after a call that seemed to keep the game within the margin.
I remember seeing him interviewed one time and the point spread thing came up and he would not talk about it saying that the league frowned on such discussions.
I am not big into conspiracies but as the years pass I become more and more suspicious of professional sports.
There are specific rules about open field tackling in a situation like that. You cannot tackle below the knee on returns.
I actually think he could have still caught the pass without the push -- he had the inside already. But it was most defiantly a push off. Receivers do it all the time and usually get away with it, but you can just about guarantee when you do it in the end zone, directly in front of an official not 10 feet away, you will get a flag.
Well then you'd be wrong. That was not a break for Seattle, that was the correction of a bad call. The refs converged and another referee with a clearer view said that the Steeler (Ward Hines?) was not contacted helmet to helmet by Bouleware so they picked up the flag. My point was that the officials should have converged later on in the game on the low-block call against Hasselbeck for "blocking" the guy with the freakin' ball.
And the officials refereed as if they hadn't officiated before in their lives as well.
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. --- very true!
Too many teams are intentionally underthrowing receivers to pick up cheap pass interference calls because the defender is playing the receiver correctly. --- very true again.....by the way, I can't believe Hines was able to get back to that crazy floater Ben miraculously threw to him on about the four yard line.
Jackson did not extend his arm. He pushed off to gain and advantage in getting to the ball at the expense of the defender.
You can't get separation that way...you have to create it with your own move. Good call in a bad situation. It would not have been as big a deal if were in the middle of the field for a first down...but still a flag to throw.
Absolutely. That was the thing that really started giving me confidence this year, it was clear in the 3rd quarter against Cincy in the Wild Card round that this was not your typical under-planned under-prepared Cowher playoff game. They clearly had a better than usual gameplan and made much better half time and inbetween possession adjustments. I'd like to see Dungy make the change too, he's a good guy and deserves a ring. I'd rather he do it with a different team since I have an innate dislike for dome teams, but I do hope he goes the distance one of these days.
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.
No. A defensive player cannot cut down a blocker by hitting them low. A defensive player can hit the guy with the ball pretty much anywhere. Just no helmet-to-helmet contact.
The call came because Hasselbeck cut low in front of a Steeler blocker in order to tackle the guy with the ball. Bogus call no matter who you're pulling for.
Talk about inflexible...... look up inflexible in the dictionary and there's a picture of Marty Schottenheimer.
;-)
But will Cowher be back at the drawing board trying to figure out ways of beating the Steelers?
*****
Very true.
Great post!
Actually the poster child for the "coach it likes it's a regular game" playoff loss mentality is Levy. Marty suffers from it, Dungy suffers from it, Cowher suffered from it until this year, but among the wonks it's generally called "Levy ball". And it leads to a general lack of league bought jewelry on your dresser.
Ok.
If there is a blocker in front of a runner, and you go down in front of the blocker...you are going to get flagged. That would happen EVEN IF you don't contact the blocker...as you block the blocker from his advantage...and you can't do that.
If there is no blocker...you can go low for the tackle, as a quarterback, and save yourself the shoulder impacts.
I see it as arrogance on the part of Levy and company.
It says, "I am going to make them play my game...force them to do what I want them to do."
NFL does not reward such arrogance anymore. The best teams prepare for what you did during the regular season. You have to fool, outsmart your opponent today.
You all would find it very interesting that I said before the Denver-Pittsburgh game (and I have two people to prove it was BEFORE THE GAME), the team that runs the ball the first two plays from scrimmage would LOSE.
Both were top NFL running and run first offenses.
Pittsburgh THREW its first TWO plays, Denver RAN its first THREE plays. Who won? Pittsburgh. Nuff said.
In this game, Shanahan fell victim to the "I will exert my freaking will upon these Pittsburgh guys!"
Whatever. Bad calls happen. The view we see on replay from booth level and the mobile sideline level are NOT always the same view that an umpire or linesmen see. Bad calls are going to happen. Like I posted earlier, the Seahawks lost because Pittsburgh played better. They lost becuase of bonehead plays like Hasselbeck thinking he was Peyton. They lost because they let Big Ben get loose once too often, and they lost becuase routine kicking and receiving plays werent completed. But if it makes you feel better to blame someone other than Stevens and the rest of the receivers and ends, who when they werent dropping passes, were catching them out of bounds, be my guest. If you want to blame NFL offciating for Holmgren not using the League MVP in the role that brought them to the Bowl, knock yourself out. But dont criticize my assesment because your team didnt play as well as the team that won. Take your lumps and get'em next year. SEA is an excellent team, they WILL be back..
I commented to one of my Seahawk friends each time this happened.
Seattle's punter did them no favors, in fact, he sucked this game.
I kept telling my friend, that ball should strike the field at the 8-9 yard line, not at the 1 or in the end zone.
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