Besides my wallets loss of some dead Presidents, the officiating sucked. Jerramy Stevens. Did he play for the 1919 Black Sox? Throw a flag on the officials by JASON WHITLOCK (Kansas City Star) DETROIT -- What crime-ridden, boarded-building, automotive-industry-ravaged, snowy Detroit couldnât do, an NFL officiating crew pulled off with relative ease in front of plenty of bored-silly football fans inside beautiful Ford Field. Sportsâ and televisionâs most indestructible beast â the Super Bowl â met its match in the 40th playing of the game the world stops to watch. The inevitable finally happened. A group of middle-aged executives trying to keep pace with a group of highly trained 20-something athletes destroyed Americaâs sports holiday. Pittsburghâs one-for-the-thumb Super Bowl will be remembered as the game when physically overmatched referees and heads-buried NFL executives flipped non-Steelers fans an XL middle finger. The Steelers shook off a terrible first quarter and whipped the Seattle Seahawks 21-10 in Super Bowl XL. Pittsburgh coach Bill Cowher, after a 14-year pursuit, secured his long-overdue first title. Receiver Hines Ward won the MVP award with a five-catch, 123-yard, one-TD performance. The Bus, Jerome Bettis, contributed a couple of big plays in his Super Bowl homecoming. And Ben Roethlisberger, the boy-wonder QB, overcame a couple of critical mistakes with a few all-heart runs and throws. The Seahawks did what they could to help the Steelers, too. Jerramy Stevens, called out by Pittsburgh linebacker Joey Porter during pregame hype, dropped enough Matt Hasselbeck passes that FBI investigators would be negligent for failing to interrogate Stevens today. His third-quarter TD catch has to be considered a smokescreen, clutched with two hands to fool people suspicious of a point-shaving scandal. Seattle coach Mike Holmgrenâs end-of-the-first-half play-calling and clock management also contributed to Pittsburghâs victory. Trailing 7-3 and having moved the ball to the Pittsburgh 40 with 48 seconds on the clock, the Seahawks wasted a good 30 seconds as Hasselbeck flapped his arms, shouted directions and impersonated Peyton Manning at the line of scrimmage. If not for a Pittsburgh timeout, it appeared the Seahawks were going to take a delay-of-game penalty or try to run out the entire clock. Eventually, Holmgren sent Josh Brown out to attempt a 54-yard field goal â which Brown missed â and walked into the Seattle locker room with one timeout in his pocket. But make no mistake about Super Bowl XL, the performance of referee Bill Leavy and his crew overshadowed Pittsburghâs heroics and Seattleâs blunders. Paul Tagliabueâs league has an officiating crisis. Bogus, inconsistent flag-throwing and rule-interpreting is making the national pastime difficult to take seriously. So far, only Joey Porter has demonstrated the necessary courage to address what we all see. Many of these part-time, 50-year-old referees donât know what theyâre doing and canât keep up with the action. Porter fumed when the refs nearly stole Pittsburghâs playoff victory over Indianapolis by overturning a Troy Polamalu interception. Porter probably wonât address the first-quarter touchdown that Sundayâs referees stole from the Seahawks. Hasselbeck avoided pressure and hit Darrell Jackson in the back of the end zone with a beautiful strike. The Pittsburgh cornerback immediately turned to back judge Bob Waggoner and begged for an offensive pass-interference call. After a couple of seconds of thought, Waggoner granted the Pittsburgh request and erased Seattleâs hard-earned touchdown. The Seahawks settled for a field goal. Had they not been robbed of the four points, they would have ended the game with the ball and the opportunity to drive for a game-tying touchdown. Seattle was victimized by two other questionable first-half calls â including the 1-yard TD run the refs awarded Roethlisberger when he seemed a few inches short of the goal line â but the final backbreaking call helped set up Pittsburghâs game-icing, reverse, wide-receiver-pass-to-Ward touchdown early in the fourth quarter. Ike Taylor intercepted Hasselbeck deep in Pittsburgh territory. Hasselbeck stopped Taylor at the Pittsburgh 29 with a perfectly executed form tackle across Taylorâs knees. The refs flagged Hasselbeck for illegally âblockingâ Taylor across his knees and gave the Steelers 15 additional yards. The Seahawks justifiably can complain that Sundayâs one-sided officiating disrupted their offensive rhythm and undermined their focus. The officiating had to creep inside their head. And NFL fans need to acknowledge that thereâs something terribly wrong with professional football. This yearâs playoffs were horrible. Sundayâs Super Bowl stands as an appropriate symbol of the 2006 playoffs â boring and poorly officiated. We are too technologically advanced, and the NFL is overrun with too much money to put up with the kind of officiating errors that are ruining the pro game. The league needs younger, full-time referees on the field and a three-man officiating team sitting in the press box supervising what is called on the field. All calls â including ones like the offensive pass-interference call that killed Seattle â should be subject to quick review and overturning. You donât need an official on the field to stick his head underneath a blanket draped over a camera to review calls. Those decisions can be made in a press-box suite. Instead of stopping the game for commercial timeouts on nearly every change of possession or when a coach just wants to stop the clock, the game should go to a commercial timeout whenever a critical penalty needs to be reviewed in the booth. Also, the officiating crew should be forced to address the media and defend their decisions. Itâs ridiculous that the media are allowed to confront players, coaches, executives and owners, but the guys who can easily change the course of a game with one questionable decision are pretty much off limits. Bill Leavy and his crew ruined Super Bowl XL. Am I the only one who would like to hear them defend their incompetence? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To reach Jason Whitlock, call (816) 234-4869 or send e-mail to jwhitlock@kcstar.com.
I think it is incorrect to say that the official waited until the Steelers' DB complained to throw the flag. I know when the play occurred it looked that way, but on the replay you could see him go for the flag immediately after he signaled touchdown. As I said before, it was a tough call for Seattle, but it was the right call, given the way the rules are interpreted. The receiver extended his arm against the DB and it clearly impeded the DB's momentum when he was trying to reverse direction.
calls or no calls are part of the game....rothlesberger or how ever you spell it admitted to letterman that he didnt think he got in; and no one was closer to the action than him..so I will take he's word and say he didnt get in...taking that back would still hand the steelers the victory.. as far as the darrel jackson call...it looked bad but could have gone either way. it did look like he pushed off a little..but hey thats up to the ref to call...peace
The technology exists to eliminate the human error. Just put a GPS or other device in the football, they could tell exactly where it was relative to the goal line. Sports want controversy, and the power that be wanted the Steelers to win. Not saying the game was fixed....but momentum turns in a game like the Superbowl cannot be over emphasized. A feeling, true or not, that the refs are on your side or against you can be a huge edge or disadvantage.
The good teams find a way to win. Other teams find an excuse to lose. For goodness sakes the Steelers had one of their worst games of the year, not to mention the first quarter, and still found a way to win. Yes, it wasn't a pretty game and close plays are gonna get questionable calls. How many times were Seattle receivers DEEP in Steeler territory only to either drop the ball or be out of bounds. If officiating isn't going your way, step up your play.
This is a very sophomoric in the fact that if you let the officials get in your head during the game, you deserve to lose...especially at their level. Who's ever played the game knows that from pop-warner to the pro's, one of rudimentals is not to let bad calls turn into bad players and a bad game. Period.
I can't believe that no one else has noticed the inverse correlation of quality of the refâs calls and prevalence of Instant Replay. Instant Replay is making these guys poor referees and theyâre becoming timid and weak. The NFL and College Football refereeâs deterioration will continue as long as the leagues continue the folly of embracing Instant Replay. (Copyrights reserved 02/07/2006)
By Tim Keown Page 2 Welcome to Conspiracy Nation, where a holding call is no longer a holding call and a foul against Duke is merely a figment of your imagination. A questionable pass interference call goes against Seattle? Someone might think it curious to discover the official who made the call is from Pittsburgh. But here in Conspiracy Nation, that news is simply received with a raised eyebrow and a knowing nod. A bogus technical costs Florida State one of its best players in an overtime loss to Duke? You think we didn't see that coming? It came less than a week after a bogus non-call against Duke cost Boston College a chance to come back in the final seconds against the Blue Devils. The officials from the Florida State game were suspended for one game, but we all know a clumsy cover-up always follows the crime. What we see here in Conspiracy Nation is a world where people have grown accustomed to looking over their shoulders. Our cars tell us where we are. We carry our phones and our e-mail in our pockets. And who knows? The NSA might be listening in. There is no coincidence. We don't believe in that here, not anymore. So it flows logically that sometimes a tackle can become an illegal block. We aren't surprised. A tackle became a block? We nod knowingly.