99 times out of 100 that ball is ruled an incomplete pass. He must make a football move. The only rationalization is the Pittsburgh fans not accepting the fact that the zebra's handed you a game. I did see one of these bang-bang catch and drops ruled a catch and fumble this season. But only saw it once. Can't remember which game. But nearly always it is ruled an incomplete pass.
The easiest way to understand how this works in practice is to state that once a catch is made, the receiver must maintain possession of the ball for at least a second in order to be eligible to fumble, otherwise the play is ruled an incomplete pass even if he has established enough possession to mormally qualify for an in-bounds catch. Now we both know this is how it works, so you can stop pretending that this non-call went against Pittsburgh.
In a sense it did go against Pittsburgh because they were getting every other call, why not this one?
Another play I'm unsure what should have been ruled was where Darrell Jackson's 2nd foot goes out of bounds and therefore no catch and TD. Makes sense. However, that 2nd foot hits the endzone pylon, knocking it down, before he steps out of bounds. I always thought the pylon was an extension of the endzone and if you hit it TD. I guess that doesn't count if you have not established possession in bounds first. Do you know for sure?
I still believe it was a quick whistle, but I'll stop pretending when you stop pretending that this was the worst officiated game ever. If you have watched as much football as you claim, you know that that's a gross over-statement. Some of the playoff games were worse. Are we now going to say all the playoff games were "fixed"? Yes, the 'Hawks had some questions about some calls, but they blamed themselves more than anything. I've seen coaches and players MUCH more upset about the reffing after a game than the 'Hawks were. Again, most of the calls in question could have gone either way. Was the OPI against Jackson ticky-tacky? Yes, a bit. I said so to my wife as we were watching the game; however, PI is frequently called when I believe it shouldn't be or not called when contact is much more severe than when it is. It's called inconsistently, no question. Had that been a DEFENDER pushing off on a WR to get the ball, they would call it 100 times out of 100. Doesn't the DB supposedly have as much right to the ball? Had that call not been made, the Steelers would be whining. Jackson clearly gained an advantage by pushing off. It allowed him to change direction to get back to the ball, and it got him seperation from the DB. Yes, it was a big call, but it was going to be no matter what the refs called or didn't call. Either way, the refs were going to be criticized. Same thing with the Big Ben's TD. Why did the ref run in spotting the ball, then change it to a TD? I don't know. Regardless of the call, it was going to get reviewed. Would the replay official reverse the call to a TD if he had been called short? Who knows? Would the Steelers have gone for it on 4D? They say YES. What was their 4D conversion rate on the season? 100%.
If somebody wants to say the Steelers got most of the close calls to go their way, I won't argue, but as I said before, the calls usually favor one team or the other in a game, sometimes more drastically than in other games.
Refs are human and they have a very difficult job to do. Instant replay has helped some. It just gets tiring to read the same garbage after every time there's a game where one team feels they got the short end of the stick from the refs. Knee-jerk fans make all kinds of wild accusations without a shred of proof that the game was "fixed" by the refs, league, networks, sportsbooks, or some "they" who wanted a certain outcome.
Another play I'm unsure what should have been ruled was where Darrell Jackson's 2nd foot goes out of bounds and therefore no catch and TD. Makes sense. However, that 2nd foot hits the endzone pylon, knocking it down, before he steps out of bounds. I always thought the pylon was an extension of the endzone and if you hit it TD. I guess that doesn't count if you have not established possession in bounds first. Do you know for sure?
I don't recall his 2nd foot hitting the pylon. I could be wrong, but the way I recall it, his left foot was already down when he made the catch. His right foot was in the air when he caught the ball and then it stepped clearly out of bounds. I think his LEFT foot then hit the pylon, but after his right foot was already out. Again, I could be wrong, but that's what I remember.