i see it this way. the steelers deserve the ring, but the refs really stunk the place up. what they did blemished the whole game. there were at least 4 horrible calls against seattle (5 if you include the one that was overturned). seattle couldn't play past the bad calls. it's tough when you have to do that and beat the steelers at the same time.
Oddly enough, you fail to mention the non calls against Seattle. Holding can be called on just about every play. Some of you are going by the comments made by Madden. Once again, I can't believe what I'm seeing today. You fail to mention Hines Ward dropping a sure TD. Was it an exciting game? No. Is the officiating pretty bad this year? Yes. Did the officiating affect the outcome of this game? no. Calls went BOTH ways.
I really think this all stems from the democrats complaining about 2000, some of you have been influence by it. Sorry, that's how I see it.
Seattle is a great team. I haven't heard them complaining about the officiating, only some who seem to feel cheated by a game that wasn't as exciting as some of you hope.
Pretty much agree with you. My Hawks had a few opportunities to win, and should have caught the ball a couple of times. The time management toward the end of the 1st half was bad. I still don't know what was running through their heads, and I'm not even sure what the Steelers were thinking calling a timeout and saving the Hawks butt a few seconds on that clock either.
But before starting this game I stated I wanted a GOOD CLEAN TIGHT game regardless of outcome. We didn't get that. Oh, we hade a semi tight game most ways through but good? Clean? Nope.
We had some terrible calls, numerous questionable penalties and that one TD the Steelers, uh-uh, did not get.
Far as I'm concerned the Steelers won it because they played slightly less bad then we did toward the end, because we had our opportunities despite bad ref calls. It's part of football unfortunately. You have to battle through even bad calls from time to time, and they didn't do it. I'm not going to be the sort that denies the victories to the Steelers just because of bad calls. But I'm giving the Steelers only a 3 point victory. I just don't acknowledge that one TD.
Congrats to the Steelers. Bad game on both sides but you guys managed to battle through that and win. So the victory is deserved on that basis.
I expect my Hawks to use this as motivation to put a beating on everyone next year and get back to the SB and win though.