Super Bowl Review- The Officiating
First of all, I would like to congratulate the Seahawks for two reasons:
1. They made it to the Super Bowl- One of the teams has to lose the Super Bowl, and this year it was them. And they deserved to. They might not have won it, but making it is a tremendous accomplishment, and they’ll be back next year.
2. Their conduct- While the Seahawks nation was cursing out the refs for “trying to get them to lose” and the NFL for “fixing the game”, they stood up and basically said that they didn’t play well enough to win the game, though Mike Holmgrem was a bit snippy about it, though. He didn’t really come out and say it, but he basically made it known he was mad about the officiating, and I never saw him shake Cowher’s hand.
And now to the officiating-
It really wasn’t as bad as it was made out to be. I’ll try to go through all the calls, but I can’t guarantee I’ll remember them all.
- The Roethlisberger touchdown- That was, without a doubt, the right call. For one thing, it was ruled a touchdown on the field, and you can’t even begin to pretend there was a tenth the amount of evidence you’d need to overturn it. Secondly: people don’t seem to realize it, but it’s true- the ball doesn’t have to get into the endzone to be a touchdown, in fact, it doesn’t even have to get over the white border of the endzone. If the tiniest part of the ball touches the white border of the endzone, it’s a score, and I think the ball was a good six inches over the line.
- The Jackson touchdown- Right call, but a bit picky. Jackson was standing next to the defender, he stuck out his arm and pushed the defender right, and then took a step left and caught the ball. That is by definition interference, though they usually don’t call it.
- The Hasselbeck penalty on the interception return- A bad call, but considering Pittsburgh did the whole drive on that monster pass from Randel El, it’s hard to say that penalty had all that much impact on the game.
- The holding call that brought back the 18 yard pass- I really don’t know. Probably not a hold, but not the worst call I’ve ever seen.
- The holding on the punt return- I missed the play, but I can never seem to catch penalties on returns, so I wouldn’t be of much use even if I had
Conclusion: The calling wasn’t great, but Seattle did more than enough to lose the game themselves. I think that Pittsburgh won’t have any pity on Seattle, considering the refs were even worse in their game against Indy a few weeks ago. I mean really, have people already forgotten the overturning of the Polamalu pick?
I think Aaron Schatz from Football Outsiders said it the best:
Let me start by saying the following: The Pittsburgh Steelers are a great team. I am happy for Bill Cowher — I never, ever bought that crap about Bill Cowher “not being able to win when it counted” or some such nonsense. I am happy for good guys like Bettis and Ward. I am happy for our man Sean Morey. I am happy for Big Ben, who is going to be a Hall of Famer someday. I am happy for Ryan, I am happy for all the Steelers fans who have supported our site, I am happy for all those fans who haven’t had a title in over 25 years. The option play was an awesome play call. The Deshea Townsend blitz was an amazing play call. Casey Hampton was darn swell.
BUT
I am glad to see that everyone pretty much agrees with me. I feel so disappointed. I don’t feel that the refs stole this game from the Seahawks. I feel that the refs stole a great game from us, the fans of the other 30 teams. Nothing says that with better officiating, Seattle would have won. Nothing says that if Seattle goes up 17-14, Big Ben can’t march the Steelers down the field and win the game in the final minute. But wow, I really would have liked to see him try.
And now enough of that, I can’t stand to spend so much time thinking and talking about officiating.
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Super Bowl
0 opinions for Super Bowl Review- The Officiating
No one has left a comment yet. You know what this means, right? You could be first!
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: