Posted on 02/09/2006 8:30:25 AM PST by beyond the sea
Dear Mr. Tagliabue,
I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to you and the league for my intemperate remarks at our ceremony at Qwest Field concerning the officiating during the Superbowl.
On Monday, just one short day after “losing” (oops) the game, I was still burned about the outcome, and I had consumed about a pound of bad jumbo shrimp for lunch, my stomach was churning, and it was just a bad day all around. I came home from Detroit, our cat was missing from the house, the Governor’s dog was hit by a car, and she was blaming me for that. Just real bad all around, Paul.
Paul, I was still stinging from calls that went against our team. It seemed like the bad calls were stacking up as high as the Space Needle.
I’ve always been known as a good and decent man in the community. Well, perhaps except for the time I borrowed my neighbor’s Rototiller to do that work on the Church rose garden .................. heck I didn’t see that rock ............. like I didn’t see that sneaky Steeler trick play coming. My neighbor told me he wouldn’t be using that Rototiller for a good long time, I thought he’d never noticed it was broken. Wosrt thing I ever did, Paul......... until now.
I feel as badly about my comment to the fans, “ "I didn't know we were going to have to play the guys in the striped shirts as well”, as I did about giving my neighbor back his mangled Rototiller. Come to think about it, that Rototiller was as busted as our defense on that Willie Parker blast right through our defense.
In closing, you must know that I’m still crushed about the loss and my words, but if you and the league are going to fine me for my perverse and untoward words, I ask you to please take into consideration that at least I didn’t refer to the officials as zebras. That should count for something.......................... and, Paul, am I off the competition committee?
Regards,
Mike Holmgren
The ball crossed the goal line while Roethlisberger was in the air. Where it landed has no bearing on whether it was a touchdown or not, so the photo is irrelevant.
I've also seen "proof" that it was not a TD posted by folks who don't seem to realize that the ball only has to break the plane of the FRONT of the goal line, it doesn't have to pass through the other side of it.
IMO it was a TD, but the call was close enough to have been HONESTLY and FAIRLY called either way on the field. Given that there was no indisputable evidence to overturn the call, the officiating in this instance was absolutely correct.
The ball crossed the goal line while Roethlisberger was in the air, he was pushed back before he hit the ground. Where the ball landed on the ground has no bearing on whether it was a touchdown or not, so the photo is irrelevant.
I've also seen "proof" that it was not a TD posted by folks who don't seem to realize that the ball only has to break the plane of the FRONT of the goal line, it doesn't have to pass through the other side of it.
IMO it was a TD, but the call was close enough to have been HONESTLY and FAIRLY called either way on the field. Given that there was no indisputable evidence to overturn the call, the officiating in this instance was absolutely correct.
I know. I also posted the picture in 166 of Ben in the air which supposively shows his furtherest forward progress. It does not show the ball breaking the plane of the endzone, but you can't tell for certain. But you are correct, that call could have been made either way and no one can bitch. It was well within the error that any human being could have made.
Oh please. You can't really believe that "the integrity of the game" is in question here. Even if you believe there were overtly bad calls (and I agree, there were a couple), they happened on both sides. If the officials were trying to rig this game, wow, they are geniuses-they managed to in a split second make most of their "phony" calls only on plays that were so close they still cannot even be agreed upon in hindsight after dozens of slow-mo viewings. Diabolically brilliant eagle-eyed men, those refs.
Writers in virtually every publication have now admitted there was nothing "rigged" about this game-Seattle got a couple of bad breaks (as did the Steelers), they made a lot of mistakes, and the Steelers had a few outstanding plays. Hence the victory, no big conspiracy, no great mystery, that's just the way this game goes sometimes.
Love those Stealers!
Love those Shehawks! I haven't seen this much crying cince the last time I watched Steel Magnolias.
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
I had to laugh at your, "Yoi, double yoi!"
My aunt, originally from Pittsburgh, says it all the time, and my kids love it! They didn't grow up there like I did, and they think it's so funny!
;-)
LOL!
I do give Ben a lot of credit for 'fessing up that he didn't get the ball to the line until after he was down. Pretty classy.
My beef hasn't been with the Stealers anyway, even though the name now fits. It's the orgyastic media & advertising culture that's overtaken the NFL & sports in general, college & pro in recent years. All that matters is multi-billion dollar TV rights contracts, the sport itself is secondary.
Thus we have most fans, the league & most personnel connected in any way with football and SB XL panting & drooling for one particular team team to win. If that team happens to be the best that day, great! If not, they are all too happy to take it any way they can.
>Thus we have most fans, the league & most personnel connected in any way with football and SB XL panting & drooling for one particular team team to win.<
Gee, you really nailed this one. If it wasn't for everyone and the NFL wanting the Steelers to win, they wouldn't have won three playoff games, wouldn't have been in the Super Bowl, wouldn't have won the Super Bowl...
Your logic makes such perfect sense.
Well, "citizen", who will the NFL and all the fans be panting and drooling for to win the next Super Bowl?
Yes, the entire NFL season is rigged to get one certain team to be the Super Bowl winner.
"I do give Ben a lot of credit for 'fessing up that he didn't get the ball to the line until after he was down."
Ben did not "fess up" to anything-he said he didn't THINK the ball made it over. Obviously there is no way for a QB who is flying through the air to have any idea one way or the other-that's the job of the official.
"my beef hasn't been with the Stealers anyway, even though the name now fits."
It only fits in the minds of whining, sour grapes sore losers. Intelligent people with any amount of football knowledge know it is completely bogus.
"Thus we have most fans, the league & most personnel connected in any way with football and SB XL panting & drooling for one particular team team to win. If that team happens to be the best that day, great! If not, they are all too happy to take it any way they can."
Sorry, the idea that the media or the NFL was drooling for the Steelers to win is simply ridiculous. Even if there was such a thing as media or NFL bias, why would it be towards a team from a city with one of the smallest television markets in the league? And anyone who watched a ref stare at the perfectly clear Polamalu interception on replay against the Colts and overturn it could not POSSIBLY believe there is any officiating favoritism towards the Steelers.
As for the media, they were bending over backwards trying to portray the Steelers as the mean, tough, trash-talking heavily-favored team and the Seahawks as the quiet, dignified but vastly underrated underdog-the media was actually salivating over the possibility of a big Seahawks upset, not over a Steelers' win. You obviously did not watch or read much of the coverage leading up to the SB.
Nobody took anything, Seattle got some bad breaks, so did the Steelers, Seattle made more mistakes and fewer big plays than the Steelers, the Steelers won the game. End of story.
Obviously any comments I made regarding the league, etc. prefering one team applies to this SB & the two teams playing in it. Period. I've never said one word about some grand season-long conspiracy or playoff conspiracy or anything of the sort.
Or even a single game conspiracy. Only that there was a clear and almost universal sentimental favorite and that that sentimental favorite eventually "won".
BTW, objective sports columnists across America agree the refs were lousy at best. Here's one from my local paper:
This Bowl officially tainted
By Furman Bisher | Friday, February 10, 2006, 04:52 PM
http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/ajc/sportscolumns/entries/2006/02/10/even_ioc_cant_g.html
There are bad calls in every football game. Therefore, in your opinion, every game must be "tainted". You calling the Steelers the "Stealers" and putting their "win" in quotes says all that we need to know about you and your opinions.
You are well beyond mere "sour grapes".
Do you even live in the Seattle area? Or the Pittsburgh area? Do you even have a dog in this fight?
What fight? I live in Atlanta and just like the game of football to be ruled fairly.
The most common quote I've heard from a lot of places is to the effect that you (refs) don't take points off the board by calling incidental contact, especially in a big game like a Super Bowl.
The refs are human, they showed us that during the game, they called it like it was a routine home game during the season.
"BTW, objective sports columnists across America agree the refs were lousy at best. "
If that guy were "objective" in the least he would have admitted that the Roethlisberger TD could have fairly been called either way, that Heath Miller also received a questionable offensive pass interference penalty, that Jeramy Stevens got away with a clear fumble that was called an incomplete pass, that Stevens also dropped at least three passes that were right in his hands, that Hasselbeck threw several passes out of bounds just out of the reach of wide open receivers...sorry, there's nothing "objective" about this guy. Whatever bad calls there were in this game did not "cost Seattle" their chance of winning the SB-that's horse doo doo, and I can show you twenty articles in which sportswriters agree with me on that point.
Did it ever occur to you that the "sentimental favorite" won not because of ref bias but because they just WANTED IT a little bit more? That's what pushed the Steelers to beat three of the league's best, on the road, to get to the SB in the first place. Isn't it just possible that even though they didn't play spectacularly for a lot of the game, they were just a little bit more determined to win than Seattle was? That's a big part of what makes football an exciting game to watch.
Nah. The refs cheated. Have a little cheese with your whine.
That's the whole thing. You are sad and upset because your home team, the falcons, didn't make it to the Super Bowl. Didn't even make the playoffs. And you want to blame the officiating and the so called "favorite picks" and it is obvious to you that the falcons are not a "favorite pick".
What kind of cheese do you like?
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