Posted on 05/22/2006 3:01:34 PM PDT by mainepatsfan
Seeking closure Seahawks air gripes over Super Bowl calls with NFL
Posted: Monday May 22, 2006 8:19AM; Updated: Monday May 22, 2006 11:13AM
Last Wednesday, exactly 100 days after the Seahawks fell to the Steelers in Super Bowl XL, NFL director of officiating Mike Pereira boarded a plane for Seattle. Truth be told, he was a little apprehensive. That's putting it mildly.
"Oh, we're loaded up for Mike,'' Seattle coach Mike Holmgren said of Pereira's visit the day before he arrived.
Pereira was going into the same kind of road venue North Carolina enters at Duke, the Red Sox walk into at Yankee Stadium, the Cowboys experience at Philadelphia. Overly dramatic? I don't think so. This was nothing less than the 268th game of the 2005 NFL season. It wasn't at Qwest Field. It wasn't played with either fanfare (no one has reported it until now) or fans. But butterflies were in the stomachs of some of the people in the room before this game began in a meeting room at the Seahawks' training complex in suburban Kirkland.
Someone from the NFL visits every team in the spring to discuss the rules changes and clarifications and points of emphasis for the coming season. It would have been easy for Pereira, knowing that the Seahawks still feel they got screwed by the officiating in Pittsburgh's 21-10 championship win, to dispatch an aide to Seattle for this year's seminar. That would have been the chicken way out, though, and Pereira knew it. So last Thursday at 9 a.m. sharp, on the second day of an Oakland-Seattle swing, he walked into the meeting room and looked at a sea of unhappy faces. Call it Sixteen Angry Men.
(Excerpt) Read more at sportsillustrated.cnn.com ...
The last thing he should do is rush himself back onto the field. He can't afford another injury.
Agreed, but word is that his recovery is ahead of schedule, and being ready for the season opener IS a possibility.
At least one of my predictions is coming true...
Last I heard of the three QBs that went down with serious injury Palmer was the most likely to start the season. Of course we're in the unconfirmed rumor part of the NFL calendar so who really knows about any of them. We won't get any useful information until the teams have to start giving the Thursday injury report.
Indeed. But like I said... Culpepper will come back before Palmer.
It's a shame I have to be right about THIS one, though.
Good teams overcome bad breaks.
Eagles bump
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