Posted on 02/07/2006 4:55:05 PM PST by bikepacker67
GOT SCREWED, USA -- Complaining about officiating is a time-honored sports tradition. It's much easier to believe your team got screwed than it got whupped because anger is more manageable than sadness.
It's sour grapes, plain and simple.
But, America, please forgive Seahawks fans if they sound a little bitter and paranoid after the rest of the country got its sweet, little fairy tale with Jerome Bettis winning Super Bowl XL in his hometown of Detroit.
It just seems a bit too tidy, considering how things went down.
Here's the rub: No intelligent person, and that includes Pittsburgh fans, watched the Steelers 21-10 "victory" and believed it was well-officiated. Period.
And every -- EVERY -- call went against the Seahawks.
Seahawks fans promise to stop being paranoid just as soon as the NFL proves it isn't out to get them.
The Seahawks, who were tied for second-fewest penalties in the NFL this year, were flagged seven times for 70 yards. Three were critical. Two were dubious. Another flag was so stupid the official explanation didn't actually make any sense.
As for head linesman Mark Hittner's oh-what-the-hell delayed touchdown call on Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger's 1-yard touchdown dive? Think the officials want that tape taken to the FBI crime lab?
The Steelers, who were tied for sixth-fewest penalties this year, suffered just three horrible hankies for 20 yards. Two were false starts on their first possession. The third was offensive pass interference on rookie tight end Heath Miller deep in Seattle territory in the second quarter. That call will inspire no wringing of hands, even from Miller.
Thereafter, apparently, the Steelers felt guilty and decided not to break the rules for the next 35 minutes. Jerome probably wanted it that way.
Apoplectic Seahawks fans are not alone. ESPN.com's Michael Smith pointed this out Monday in a story ripping the officials: "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."
Let's rewind.
Matt Hasselbeck hits Darrell Jackson for a 16-yard touchdown pass for a 7-zip lead?
Nope. The incidental contact that occurs on nearly every NFL passing play was, actually, offensive interference -- at least the officials decided so after safety Chris Hope stomped and huffed and demanded a flag, perhaps insisting that Jerome wanted it that way.
Beleaguered tight end Jerramy Stevens makes a spectacular catch inside the Steelers 2-yard line setting up what surely would have been a Shaun Alexander touchdown run and 17-14 Seahawks lead early in the fourth quarter?
Nope. Seems that offensive tackle Sean Locklear's incidental hooking (which occurs on nearly every NFL play from scrimmage) on his block of Clark Haggans (who was offside) was too dastardly to ignore.
Maybe the officials were calling the game tightly.
Nope. Only two plays later, Steelers linebacker Joey Porter used an illegal "horse collar" tackle on Alexander, and the officials decided to let it slide, even though that would have transformed a third-and-18 on the Steelers 34 to a first down on their 19.
"Penalties, as much as anything, were the story of the game," Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren said. "That's unfortunate. And that might be the first time I've said that in my life."
Here's the comic relief.
After the no-call on the horse collar, Hasselbeck tossed a critical interception to cornerback Ike Taylor. Hasselbeck then, apparently, forgot which team he plays for and tried to throw a block in order to spring Taylor. Only he threw a "low block," according to the game's official book.
So not only does he toss a pick and then try to block for an opposing player, but he also gets called for a 15-yard penalty.
Most folks would figure that Hasselbeck was trying to TACKLE Taylor. Seeing Hasselbeck is a quarterback lacking tackling skills, he went low. But the officials decided it was a block. Only Hasselbeck was credited with a tackle on the play.
(The official explanation is he went low on a guy trying to block him, which is against the rules on a change of possession. But the fact that he made the tackle erases, at least for a reasonable person, his potential motivation based on the result. It was a tackle.)
Like we said: Stupid.
Steelers fans should be angry, too. For one, they know how this feels, see their playoff game vs. Indianapolis, when they were the interlopers ruining the heartwarming tale.
Moreover, the execrable officiating cheapens their championship because it's what folks are talking about now, not the glory of Bettis.
Is all this an accusation -- J'Accuse! -- like Porter's ranting about the terrible officiating in the Indianapolis game?
Yes. No. Who knows?
It's just too bad -- for everyone -- that the officials made sure Super Bowl XL wasn't "Extra Large," as the joke went, but "Extremely Lame."
Why would you assume they weren't made for the Seahawks? I can guarantee there were Seahawks Super Bowl Champion hats/shirts ready for the team, if they won.
Just capitalism ... nothing more or less.
Finally someone at ESPN has seen the light...
http://www.thenewstribune.com/sports/story/5509834p-4965313c.html
NFL adds fuel to conspiracy theory flames
JOHN MCGRATH; THE NEWS TRIBUNE Published: February 7th, 2006 02:30 AM
DETROIT – Say this for Detroit: No longer can it be called The City that Never Sweeps.
On Monday, as tens of thousands of tourists headed for the airport, downtown Detroit showed no visible hangover from the world’s largest 10-block party.
Broken bottles, empty cans, and discarded food containers already were off the sidewalks. Patches of snow sparkled in the sun.
The major cleanup project remaining after Super Bowl XL, it seems, belongs to the NFL, whose task over the next few days will be to debunk conspiracy theories.
You’ve heard the accusations: The league favored the Steelers because owner Dan Rooney belongs to the old-boy network that pulls strings for commissioner Paul Tagliabue...
The league favored the Steelers because Jerome Bettis’ return to his hometown was an easy-to-follow saga for indifferent television viewers in faraway places …
The league favored the Steelers because it is headquartered in New York, and thus harbors an East Coast bias against West Coast markets such as Seattle …
The league favored the Steelers because their throwback jerseys are way cooler than any officially licensed Seahawks apparel to make cash registers go ka-ching …
While all of this is so much hokum – how was it that the NFL’s aversion to West Coast champions didn’t prevent the San Francisco 49ers from winning four Super Bowls between 1985 and 1995? – it can’t be denied that officials assigned by the NFL made one atrocious call that cost the Seahawks a touchdown, and another bad call that prevented Seattle from attempting, at the very least, a routine field goal.
Coach Mike Holmgren was as reluctant to point fingers Monday morning as he was in the postgame interview compound Sunday night. His tone on both occasions was diplomatic.
But Holmgren on Monday was candid about one aspect of Super Bowl XL: Pittsburgh’s conspicuous home-field advantage.
The Seahawks understood the hostile climate that awaited them in Ford Field. Days before kickoff, corporate tickets available to league business associates living in places like Dallas, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles suddenly showed up on eBay. Weighing a weekend trip to Detroit to watch the Seahawks and Steelers against making some easy money on an Internet auction, those tickets wound up in the hands of Steelers fans.
But it wasn’t until the pregame introduction of former Super Bowl MVP winners that the intensity of the Pittsburgh faction become fully evident. While most of the MVPs heard polite applause, Steelers’ icons Lynn Swann and Franco Harris were treated to a heroes’ welcome. Of the 68,206 fans on hand, it seemed as though 60,000 of them waved “Terrible Towels.”
Holmgren had more on his mind Sunday night than the emotional makeup of the audience. After the Seahawks’ 21-10 defeat, however, he talked with his grown children.
“They were pretty emotional – their father had lost a football game,” said Holmgren.
OK, coach, we’ll consider the source.
Their beef?
“Steelers towels were on sale at every souvenir stand in the stadium,” Holmgren said, noting that blue-and-green Seahawks towels were not available.
“That,” he said, “seems pretty unfair.”
The preponderance of Steelers fans in the house did not, at first, appear to faze the “visitors” at the neutral site. While quarterback Matt Hasselbeck worked the flanks of the Pittsburgh defense with a succession of precision, high-percentage passes, the Steelers were penalized for two false starts. (Pittsburgh was flagged only once thereafter.)
But the trappings of a road game took an eventual toll. There’s a human element in sports, even with pros competing on an elite level, and the human element insists it’s more difficult to win when the crowd is overwhelmingly against you.
“This is the first Super Bowl I’ve ever been a part of – as an assistant or a head coach – where one team had that many fans behind it,” said Holmgren.
Actually, previous Super Bowls have featured local teams, with mixed results: San Francisco played at nearby Stanford Stadium in 1985 (the 49ers beat Miami), and the Los Angeles Rams played at Pasadena in 1980 (they lost to Pittsburgh). The Oakland Raiders twice made a relatively short trip to Southern California, beating Philadelphia in 1981 and losing to Tampa Bay in 2003.
But the crowds in those instances were not as wildly animated as the one that cheered on the Steelers in Detroit.
More than “Terrible Towels” were at work. Amid the buildup to Super Bowl XL, mayor Kwame Kilpatrick not only presented Bettis with a symbolic key to the city, he told the running back how he wished for him to bring the Vince Lombardi trophy to Detroit.
Mayors will be mayors, to be sure, and Super Bowl tickets are a free-market enterprise. The NFL cannot control allegiances.
Souvenir stands are something else: Either make rooting accoutrements available for fans of both teams, as Holmgren suggested, or ban such items as “Terrible Towels” altogether.
No, the 9-1 ratio of Pittsburgh fans at Ford Field wasn’t responsible for the Seahawks’ sloppiest performance since the season opener at Jacksonville. But the mere appearance of league-sponsored partisanship feeds the imagination of Seahawks’ conspiracy theorists.
After watching replays of Darrell Jackson’s touchdown catch – called back because of slight and incidental contact – the imagination is one hungry beast.
John McGrath: 253-597-8742, ext. 6154 john.mcgrath@thenewstribune.com
yep i'm convinced now...
let's start an online petition!!
oops, already done LOL!!!
Thanks for the link!
*SNIPPET from ESPN's Gene Wojciechowski*
"And finally, can we stuff a very large sani-sock into the mouth of Seattle coach Mike Holmgren, and anyone else who says the refs had it out for the poor, little Seahawks?
The signs are very clever (Refs 21, Seahawks 10 ... or, Pittsburgh's 12th Man: The Refs), but they're bogus. It's how sore losers rationalize a final score. Worse yet, it's crying. And there's no crying in football, unless you're Hines Ward.
I know what you're thinking Cincinnati Bengals, Indianapolis Colts, Denver Broncos and, yes, Seattle Seahawks. You're thinking about the way the Steelers bumbled about in Ford Field, and you're saying to yourselves: "Tell me again how we lost to these guys?''
Think about Sunday's game:
Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger freaked out ... The best Pittsburgh pass of the day (and I'm stealing Michael Irvin's line here) was thrown by wide receiver Antwaan Randle El ... The Steelers' inspirational "hero,'' Jerome Bettis, rushed for a grand total of 43 yards and couldn't pound it in when Pittsburgh needed him most ... The Steelers had fewer passing yards, less time of possession, fewer total yards, and more turnovers.
And yet, the Steelers won by 11, covering the spread with ease. Conspiracy theories arrived moments later.
The refs stole it.
The NFL "wanted'' this.
The Seahawks were really the better team.
Look, the game itself was 3 hours and 36 minutes of yawns. I think we can all pretty much agree on that. I loved the story lines, but the game, not so much.
But to simply dismiss the Steelers victory as an act of referee kindness is to take a Bettis-sized leap of faith.
Sorry, but Seahawks receiver Darrell Jackson pushed off in the end zone. Did it gain him an advantage? Maybe. Maybe not. All that matters is that the official standing nearby -- a lot closer than John Madden, you or me -- thought so. Instead of a touchdown, Seattle settled for a 3-0 first quarter lead.
Sorry, but Roethlisberger might have broken the plane of the goal line on his second quarter 1-yard TD dive. Or not. That's what matters, right? Not where he landed, but if the ball broke the plane? The play was reviewed and upheld. What else was anyone supposed to do? And while there are no guarantees, if the ball had been spotted just short of the goal line, the Steelers were 100 percent on fourth-and-goals this season.
Sorry, I truly don't know whether Sean Locklear held Clark Haggans on that key fourth quarter call. Even if he didn't, and it was first-and-goal from the Pittsburgh 1, then what? If you can't guarantee Pittsburgh's scoring on fourth-and-inches in the second quarter, you can't guarantee Seattle's scoring on first-and-goal from the 1. Why? Because funny things happen, like the Bettis fumble against Indy. Or Roethlisberger's underthrowing a wide-open Cedrick Wilson against Seattle, costing the Steelers a sure touchdown or a likely field goal (the ball was at the Seahawks' 7). Instead, Kelly Herndon intercepted the crummy pass, returned it 76 yards and Seattle scored three plays later.
No one can deny there were questionable calls during the game. But before Holmgren and Latte Nation start whining about playing "the guys in the striped shirts as well,'' perhaps a history lesson is in order.
The striped shirts didn't cause tight end Jerramy Stevens to drop four passes. The striped shirts didn't cause the Seahawks defense to give up a Steelers first down on a third-and-28 situation (which later led to the Roethlisberger disputed TD). The striped shirts didn't cause the Seahawks defense to give up the longest touchdown run in Super Bowl history. They also didn't cause Etric Pruitt to sprint up from his safety position, only to be fooled by the trick play that resulted in Randle El's 43-yard TD pass to Ward (and by the way, if everyone knows the Steelers like to run gadget plays near midfield, don't you think the Seahawks knew it too?). Or cause Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck to throw a killer interception with nearly 11 minutes left in the game and Seattle trailing by only four points.
Enough already with the whining. The Seahawks had their chances. Plenty of them to overcome the Steelers and, if they insist, the refs, too.
Holmgren, who didn't exactly distinguish himself in the waning minutes of both halves, is no doubt suffering some post-Super Bowl anger. Perfectly understandable, especially in front of the thousands who greeted the team upon its return to Seattle. But days, weeks, months from now, when he's able to think more clearly, he'll realize the only people to blame for the loss were wearing Seahawks metallic blue, not black and white.
Gene Wojciechowski is the senior national columnist for ESPN.com."
You can contact him at gene.wojciechowski@espn3.com.
wasn't there the same amount of complaining after Larry Brown picked off Neil O'Donnell twice 10 years ago?
something about how Jerry Jones had paid O'Donnell to throw those picks?
Oh really, take a look at the replay and decide for yourself:
However, concerning the two major calls that Seattle fans are weeping about:
1. The Jackson offensive interference call in the end zone. Good call. When Jackson pushed off the defender, the ball was so close the defender could not recover. So the push had a definite effect on the results. Had the push happened earlier in the play, it likely would not have been flagged. Seattle still got a FG, so it was a four-point loss.
2. The Roethlessberg TD. Even if it wasn't a TD, and I thought it was, it was so close to the goal line that they would surely have got the TD on the next play anyway.
The other complaints seem valid, but, give the Seahawks 4 more points and they still would have lost.
I'm a fan of neither team, so I had no huge bias, although I'm an AFC guy (Broncos), so I had a slight bias for the Steelers. I just wish "Big Ben" had played that crappy when the Steelers played the Broncos 2 weeks before.
American Football is basically a busted game.
It takes three hours to run out a one hour clock, so two thirds of the time nothing whatsoever is happening as it pertains to the game. Of that one hour clock, the ball is in motion for cumalative 12 to 15 minutes, the rest of the time is wasted in clock run out.
That's 15 minutes of football in three hours, no wonder they need super ads, cheerleaders and a half time extravaganza to keep the folks entertained..
Then seven officials have to explain what happened to the spectators, and they can't even get it right because the rules are so damn complex and so open to interpretation that no one can understand them or come to agreement on them.
Then to cap it all, at the end of a purely domestic competition between a paltry 32, or so, teams, the winners have the gall to declare themselves "World Champions" .
I'm sure the other countries in the World are all scratching their heads as to how they didn't make to the Superbowl yet again...
Come on Doc.....I hate The Pittsburgh Steelers.
We Patriots fans have so much enjoyment over having our team beat them regularly. Well almost regularly, but often on their home field.
I was rooting for Seattle the entire game and they made some terrific plays. The Steelers also made a few good plays. Yes the officials gave Pittsburgh big advantages....but I do not think that those advanatages were insurmountable.
If there were no problems, we should expect to see Leavy officiate during next year's playoffs.
Just another case of a myth being popularized by Steeler haters who don't understand the rules (i.e. Seattle writer John Clayton).
Explanation from an official:
"My guess is that Clayton may be confusing two concepts. The first is when a catch constitutes a legal completion. The second is when a player is OOB.
The fact that the pylon is considered in bounds for a touchdown does not necessarily mean that it is considered in bounds for purposes of determining whether a catch was completed. E.g., if a player gets both feet in bounds and then kicks the pylon, it's a touchdown, but that doesn't necessarily mean that a guy could dive for a pass, catch it in the air, and then slap the pylon with his elbow on the way OOB and claim a completed pass."
"Pathetic that so many freepers feel the need to resort to personal attacks rather than sticking to their opinions about the calls."
It is a shame, but it says more about them than it does about the people they attack. People like that should be ignored. Nobody would be talking about this if there was nothing wrong with the game. The NFL was in full damage-control mode today,making it clear that this was a PR disaster. This people cantell themselves whatever they want.
This was probably as bad or worse than when Miami had their NCAA Football National Championship stolen by a BS flag that was thrown 20 minutes after the game was over.
It was called an illegal block below the waist because if you look at the replay Hasselbeck made contact with a blocker during his tackle attempt at Taylor. When Hartings was nailed for IBBW in the Indy game the same thing happened. Hartings took out the guy with the ball but he also made contact with a blocker trailing the play (and he dove low just like Hasselbeck). So again, technically the call was correct. People just hear some knucklehead commentator spout off on TV and assume they know what they are talking about.
And I might add what did Cowher say about the refs call against Hartings after the Indy game? He came out after the game and said the refs made the right call.
As I reflect more on this, I come to one conclusion.
It's a good thing that the majority of US football fans aren't Radical Muslims, if the Danish Cartoon capers are any indication of what would result.
Those calls have money behind them, they are too blatant and obvious.
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