Officials confirm Warner fumbled at game's end

NBC Sports ^ | 2/2/09 | Tom Curran

[TheBigB]

(excerpted)... According to NFL VP of Officiating Mike Pereira, the replay official upstairs did see the play clearly.

“We confirmed it was a fumble,” said Pereira. “The replay assistant in the replay booth saw it was clearly a fumble. The ball got knocked loose and was rolling in his hand before it started forward. He has to have total control.”

[Flycatcher]

Arizona showed up to lose on Sunday. They lived up to the expectation everyone had for them.

Yes and no. They lost, as was expected, but they covered the seven point spread.

A too fine point? Nope. Not if you had money on the Cards. :)

[Eagles6]

Yep, Fitzgerald’s touchdown did not appear to be a completion and they didn’t even question it, just blew on by.

[McGruff]

Obama said earlier this week that the Steelers are his favorite team outside of his hometown Chicago Bears, so he's going to be rooting for the AFC. It doesn't hurt that Steelers owner Dan Rooney has been a big Obama supporter...

[FormerLib]

Arizona showed up to lose on Sunday. They lived up to the expectation everyone had for them.

I think they exceeded most expectations and played one of the best Super Bowl games I've seen.

Yeah, it was a fumble and that's a fact for the history books.

[Petronski]

The identification of this play as a fumble is not “an interpretation,” it is fact. Or do you dispute that the ball changed possession?

You are not entitled to your own reality.

[CGTRWK]

The call isn’t the issue. It was a close play so half the people watching are going to call you a blind liar no matter which side you come down on. You’ll never convince them otherwise so don’t bother to try.

The indefensible decision was choosing to not even look at it.

Thus declaring the call correct after the game with the benefit of replay is missing the point. The only call that counted was not made with the benefit of a clear look and getting it right or not was a matter of luck. Which is exactly the sort of fallibility that replay exists to prevent and why the critical last two minutes are reviewed by the booth.

There’s no excuse for that booth not doing their job. The best the league can do after the fact is damage control, which means saying the call was correct. Anything else would be an even larger embarassment.

[Petronski]

This Super Bowl was not nearly as foul smelling as Super Bowl XL vs the Seahawks (one of the most obviously thrown Super Bowls in history)...

ROFLMAO

[Petronski]

I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who saw that the Steeler’s winning touchdown was a farce.

Check the final score. It was a touchdown.

[Petronski]

The indefensible decision was choosing to not even look at it.

Indefensible? There's nothing to defend. It was so obviously a fumble, there was no need for any lengthy review.

Read the article.

[Petronski]

There’s no excuse for that booth not doing their job.

There is no excuse needed. They did their job:

...The replay assistant in the replay booth saw it was clearly a fumble....

[jeffc]

Football is too micro-managed now to be played without analyzing super-slo-mo replays. The rules need to be simplified back to the 1960's so on-the field referees can make the calls; save the instant-replay analysis for challengable calls.

I'm tired of the "Gee, this is gonna be real close to call", or "I gotta' disagree with you on this one (said to in-booth partner), I think he had control" stuff.

[Wyatt's Torch]

Can’t be.....IT WAS FIXED!!! IT WAS RIGGED!!!!!!!!!!

Right?

[Incorrigible]

Check the final score. It was a touchdown.

Just because the verdict was not-guilty it doesn't mean OJ didn't kill his wife.

.

[rintense]

I think the bigger issue is all the blown calls, in addition to this one. This was one of the worst officiated SBs I’ve ever seen. The refs were the talk of the game at the party I was at.

[Eagles6]

I'm not sure if you actually watched the video but the ball and/or Warner's arm was hit as his arm was cocked back full and the ball is rolling out of his hand as his arm comes forward. Obvious and undeniable in the last slo/mo clip in the video.

Now the Fitzgerald TD catch in the endzone is something that should have been challenged, we did not believe that he had control before the ball hit the ground, incomplete pass.

Rothlesberger's TD run was iffy, 3 angles looked like a TD and 1 didn't but there was not overwhelming evidence to change the call on the field yet they overruled in AZ's favor.

As for the Seattle game, sorry, all were good calls, get over it.

[The KG9 Kid]

Oh, they did that at least. I was interested in seeing that.

[Jaime2099]

Laugh all you want it doesn’t change the bought and paid for Super Bowl XL victory the Steelers had over the Seahawks.

[jeffc]

Also, let me add: There is one thing to say for the instant replay, super-slo-mo analyzing, but there is also another thing - seeing it happen a few feet in front of you. The instant-replay thing can only really catch something from an angle the ref may not be in an optimum position to see.

And this comes from someone who stopped watching football completely in the '70s due to the extremely horrible officiating back then; it's like they just grabbed myopic people off the street to ref back then!

[Wyatt's Torch]

Laugh all you want it doesn’t change the bought and paid for Super Bowl XL victory the Steelers had over the Seahawks.