What a dreadful suckfest that Super Bowl was. The play was terrible, the officiating was worse and the Rolling Stones looked like they were going through the motions. Even the commercials were boring.
I kept hearing about how Pittsburgh was going to play a "smash mouth" style of football. Their offense was going to run Jerome Bettis 15 times for countless yards and their defense would shut down the potent Seahawk defense. Well, Bettis ran 14 times but for a mere 43 yards and the Seahawks defense was stopped by their own ineptness and the officials. When you score 2 of 3 touchdowns on a fortunate call and a trick play, that can't possibly be called "smash mouth."
Beyond that though, the officiating reared its ugly head once again this playoff season. But this time instead of almost losing a game for the Steelers, it gave them the Super Bowl title. Bill Leavey's officiating crew spotted the Steelers a 10 (if not 14) point edge with the questionable offensive pass interference call and the Ben Roethlisberger "touchdown".
First, the pass interference call is a call 9 out of 10 officials don't make. Both players were jostling each other, so as an official you keep that flag in you're back pocket.
The Roethlisberger touchdown, however, was the most egregious. I agree with the Bill Leavey if he claims that there wasn't enough visual evidence to overturn the TD call... my problem was with the official who originally called it a TD. There is NO WAY he could have determined that the football crossed the goal line before Roethlisberger was down. In fact, that official didn't make the call until long after Roethlisberger had been down and had then moved the ball across the goal line. That official should have never called it a TD in the first place.
But, although Mike Holmgren and Seahawk fans have every right to be mad about the officiating, Seattle undoubtedly played horribly. Those missed field goals were long, but they were certainly makeable. And Jerramy Stevens dropped way too many perfectly thrown balls. Even their time management at the end of each half showed their overall ineptness. But in spite of all that, they still out-gained the Steelers in overall yards (396-339) and passing yards (259-158). They even tied them in yards per rush (5.5), and might have out-gained them in rushing yards if they weren't playing from behind most of the game. So I won't unsoundly claim, as Pittsburgh newspapers and fans have, that the Seahawks didn't play well enough to win. The Seahawks did play well enough to win because Pittsburgh didn't exactly play better. They just got the calls which kept the Seahawks from scoring, and which gave them 7 instead of 3 points.
The Steelers were undoubtedly helped to that win. But you really can't blame Pittsburgh and their fans for it. I would be unabashedly celebrating the win if it were the Redskins, just like Steeler fans are celebrating today. Although, deep down I would be questioning why the officials favored us over them... and maybe that win would ring a little hollow if I had some sense of conscious in me.
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