"Other than" a play where, after an incredible scramble, including dancing along the line of scrimmage taking care not to go past, he passes all the way across the field to complete a 3rd-and-28? Other than that (which may have been the longest 3rd down conversion in Super Bowl history), and the longest run in Superbowl history, and the first ever receiver-to-receiver touchdown pass in Superbowl history, they played pretty awful. Sheesh. That was the ballgame.wordmunger said:
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Worst Officiated SuperBowl EVER!
- Thread starter Jovian9
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I wish I could find a reference, but I'm fairly sure you're wrong on this. I've seen many-a-game, and it's always been the field-side of the stripe.QCassidy352 said:
Have to take issue with this too. Roethlisberger has already said the plan was to go for it on 4th down if they didn't get in. Bettis converts around 80% of 3rd or 4th & 1's (forgot the exact statistic, had it up earlier in the playoffs). The only stop in the backfield I remember from the game was when they were running out the clock. He almost never gets tackled for a loss. And I can't ever remember him failing to convert at the goal line.QCassidy352 said:
You can make if-then's about a number of things. If Roethlisberger had a little more on his pass, instead of an interception it's a touchdown, and we're up 21-3. If Ike Taylor hadn't dropped his first interception (which was right to him). If Hines Ward hadn't dropped his first touchdown catch. If any of the numerous drops by Seattle had been converted. Bottom line, Pittsburgh won the game.
You're right in that the officiating had nothing to do with the trick pass TD, that great run, or the Seahawk's bad clock management. The Steelers (big ben aside) played fairly well, but so did the Seahawks. The difference is the the steelers didn't have all of their big plays taken away from them on bs calls. Yes, the steelers were blatently robbed in the Colts game and won anyway, so kudos to them for that. But I was appalled by that officiating, and just glad that the right team managed to win in spite of the officiating. I don't know whether the Seahawks would have won a fairly officiated game, but they shouldn't have to play uphill (nor should the Steelers or anyone else).
Again, I'm not a fan of either team. But I am a football fan, and from the objective standpoint of a guy who wanted to see a good game, this was highway robbery.[/QUOTE]
I had a very interesting discussion with an friend of mine who happens to be a life long Steelers fan. We came to some conclusions:
Steelers fans are getting defensive because they wanted to win and they didn't care about questionable calls and bad play. Personally, if it were my team I'd feel the same way. A win's a win.
Seattle fans probably feel cheated. And again, I would feel this way too if it were my team. Every big call went against them. I don't think the game was rigged, but it really seemed that way.
Neutral watchers or people who may have routed for one team or another but didn't have any allegiance to either team felt cheated too. The SB was supposed to have 2 very good teams play a game officiated by a hand selected group of refs. We got cheated out of a good game. Both teams played pretty bad compared to their regular season and other playoff games. It's a badly officiated game whenever the refs are noticed. Basically, the people who fit into this category just wanted an exciting game with some funny commercials scattered around. We got neither.
My point, you really have to know where someone stands when you are talking to them. I believe all three categories are have justified opinions.
Steelers fans are getting defensive because they wanted to win and they didn't care about questionable calls and bad play. Personally, if it were my team I'd feel the same way. A win's a win.
Seattle fans probably feel cheated. And again, I would feel this way too if it were my team. Every big call went against them. I don't think the game was rigged, but it really seemed that way.
Neutral watchers or people who may have routed for one team or another but didn't have any allegiance to either team felt cheated too. The SB was supposed to have 2 very good teams play a game officiated by a hand selected group of refs. We got cheated out of a good game. Both teams played pretty bad compared to their regular season and other playoff games. It's a badly officiated game whenever the refs are noticed. Basically, the people who fit into this category just wanted an exciting game with some funny commercials scattered around. We got neither.
My point, you really have to know where someone stands when you are talking to them. I believe all three categories are have justified opinions.
Meh...I was at the Mall of America's Apple store playing around with the 1.83Ghz iMacs during the SuperBowl. I think I saw the last 10 minutes of it. *shrugs*
Dave00 said:
Here's the link from the from NFL.com's rulebook
I won a free beer arguing that they wouldn't overturn it based on that from an American who refused to believe a Scottish girl could know anything about 'his' game
As a neutral, I was disappointed by the standard of play; the dropped balls and poor passing had more impact on the quality of the game than the refereeing (which at least gave us something to argue over in the bar!)
I thought the first Seahawks TD should have stood since the pushing off was minimal. The 'hold' on the call that took the Seahawks inside the 5 was more obvious. The trouble is that since the cameras don't always show the line from that angle, it's unclear whether the refs were penalising all similar holds or if it was that particular one. Either way, it did change the momentum since even if they hadn't scored a TD from there, Josh was unlikely to miss a field goal from that distance. The other call that I thought was particularly bad was the 'block below the knee' on Hasselback since as it was on the ballcarrier, I thought it should just have been a tackle.
Go to the NFL home page and not a word of the piss poor calls the referees made, swept under the rug. Ref's ruined this one for me i just wanted a good game and they werent going to allow that.
it's amusing how fired up people are getting. even moreso those who don't care for either team specifically.
carry on
carry on
Cool, now the Steelers are WORLD Champions, without ever having to play anyone outside North America...
I suggest we in the US start watching real football (soccer). People always complain that soccer and hockey games either end low scoring, tied, or 0-0, but the push for more points/touchdowns/slamdunks, has made people appreciate quantity instead of quality. Hummer vs. BMW. A touchdown is no longer "touching the ball down to the ground", but a "break of the plane"
By the way, rigged events will always be around, as long as $$$ is involved. Anyone see the last few elections?
I suggest we in the US start watching real football (soccer). People always complain that soccer and hockey games either end low scoring, tied, or 0-0, but the push for more points/touchdowns/slamdunks, has made people appreciate quantity instead of quality. Hummer vs. BMW. A touchdown is no longer "touching the ball down to the ground", but a "break of the plane"
By the way, rigged events will always be around, as long as $$$ is involved. Anyone see the last few elections?
Letterman
It was funny how Big Ben admitted on Letterman last night that even he didn't think he crossed the goal line...
He had a sheepish grin while he said it...he also said they would have gone for it on 4th down, and it would have been a QB sneak....
Food for thought
It was funny how Big Ben admitted on Letterman last night that even he didn't think he crossed the goal line...
He had a sheepish grin while he said it...he also said they would have gone for it on 4th down, and it would have been a QB sneak....
Food for thought
Otto Rehhagel said:
I'd suggest most people don't bother. I've had soccer force-fed to me for years and the quality has consistently dropped. There are too many games, too many competitions and too many teams involved - particularly in the UK.
Soccer between two top-ranked teams who have a 'winning' mentality as opposed to 'play for the draw or a single goal' can be fun to watch. As soon as they sit back and get defensive it becomes one of the most boring games on earth. Team 1 get ball within 10 yards of the penalty air - boot it all the way back to the other end of the pitch... yawn!
Far too many games have mediocre players who have little concept of ball skills, where the balls stays in the air (being booted from the middle of each half) longer than it does in American football.
Sure, you don't have stoppage or timeouts (officially) but there's still a heck of a lot of 'dead' time in every game where the ball is out of bounds or waiting for a free kick.
I prefer the strategy of American football and the structure that says you can never stop going for the first down or the other team gets field position and a chance to come back. A perfectly flighted free kick into the penalty area is a beautiful thing... but there are a lot more opportunities for thrilling catches in the NFL (at any point on the field) than there are in soccer.
The reason, however, that soccer is far more popular in the rest of the world, is that anyone with a ball can play it - practising on their own, with a couple of friends. American football requires more equipment and, in the UK at least, more stringent requirements for health and safety (you can't play a football game - even in the amateur leagues - without an ambulance being present which gets pricey) compared to anyone who can hire a 5 a side soccer field for £30 an hour
Applespider said:
Very good points made. American football reminds me of a very violent chess game with lots of commerical to fill in the time it takes for the coaches to figure out what they want to do next. You just need a good 3-4 hours of time to enjoy a game like the Superbowl.
This may be an extreme point of view, but I see American Football contributing to the problem of attention deficit disorder, with no play lasting a few seconds and commercials popping up every 3 minutes. It makes me crazy.
did he mean at the time, or has he seen replays? speaking of which, are there any videos or photos of it?quigleybc said:
i do believe the ball crossed the line. during the replay, just before the defender hit roethlisberger, it looked to me that the side of the ball (vertically oriented, so not the tip) just barely crossed the very front edge of the white stripe. once the hit was made, the ball was then forced back over the playing field.
ike taylor was the ball carrier. hasselbeck's hit on him was legal, but what he got flagged for was hitting the legs of another steeler on his way to tackle taylor.Applespider said:
i'm not horribly familiar w/ the minutiae of the nfl rules, but it looked to me to be a crap call, since it was obvious to me that he was going for the runner.
now, on the other side, during herndon's 76 yd interception return, roethlisberger was blocked in the back and thrown to the ground on the way to making a tackle. there's something that should have been flagged but wasn't. i reckon it would have given the seahawks a 1st and 10 from about the 45 instead of the 20.
Otto Rehhagel said:Cool, now the Steelers are WORLD Champions, without ever having to play anyone outside North America...
Your point is well-taken, but in fairness, for that particular sport, there's no league in any other country that is as good as the NFL. So it's not totally crazy to claim that the Super Bowl champs have the best American football team. Ditto the NBA and baseball title winners. (In the case of the World Series, the name date from around 1900, when almost no other country was even playing baseball, much less fielding a competitive pro league.) The name is presumptuous, but not totally inaccurate.
Let's put it this way, should the MLS champ in the U.S. be invited to the Champions League? No, because almost no one -- even in MLS -- thinks they belong there.
Applespider said:
Thank you! I'm an American who really does like soccer, but a large proportion of games are just not exciting to watch. So many teams bat it around waiting for the opposition to screw up. At any given time quite a few players are just watching a couple players pass it back and forth in the middle of the field. And a ridiculously high number of games are effectively over after the first goal because the leading team plays ultra-conservative and doesn't bother trying for more scoring chances. (Germany, I'm looking at you.) Soccer and American football are two different types of games and each have their own faults. But claiming that one has dead time and the other doesn't is kind of silly.
It's just common sense that there is no other team anywhere in the world is at good at football as an American team. There is a reason that it isn't in the Olympics. I'm not saying this trying to be pig headed, but I don't think enough children grow watching football in other parts of the world and it would probably take a few years of hard training just to get a non-American team anywhere close to competing with an American one. Not physically, but to truly understand the mental aspect of the game will take sometime.Otto Rehhagel said:Cool, now the Steelers are WORLD Champions, without ever having to play anyone outside North America...
example: most wide receivers have been playing receiver for a long time (including college, HS, and maybe younger). They understand how to get by a guy. They understand how to get position.
example 2: many world championships take place in the US and rightfully so. There aren't many non-American born players in the NFL. But why do the best hockey, baseball, and baseketball players all come to the US (North American in general)? I don't really know, but you can't deny that they do.
Please, don't take my remarks as discrimination, I mean nothing of the sort.
Otto Rehhagel said:
Most American's have no attention span to begin with (me included). That is way we love our football so much.
Otto Rehhagel said:
George Will's only memorable line is about how (American) football embodies the worst of American life: violence and committee meetings.
Otto Rehhagel said:
I blame MTV. Crazy camera angles and fast editing substitute for creativity and substance.
zimv20 said:
A football columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News (Rich Hofman) spoke about this call on DNL (a local sports show). He said if you never saw a football game but you memorized the rule book, then yes this was the correct call. But refs are allows to make judgment calls and anyone who watches football even semi-regularly should know not to make this call. He said while he totally disagrees with the call and the flag should never have been thrown, he can't fault the refs for making it.
He didn't even blame the refs for the Ben touchdown. He said he thought is was way to close too call. Letting the call on the field stand was probably the right decision.
He did say however that the pass interference call was bogus. He thought it should have been a no-call. Even a PI call on the steelers would have been more plausible.
He also said that the holding call was stupid. It was no more of a hold than the holding on any play which usually is allowed. He also said that the steeler who was held (I can't think of his name right now), was definitely no-doubt-about-it offsides.
i agree.grapes911 said:
is it just me, or was there a dearth of slow-motion replays? maybe ABC was too concerned about cutting to commercial, but i'm used to seeing several replays, from different angle, for such things.
was there a hold? i didn't see one, but i only got one replay from one angle.
there were a couple of plays where i was surprised the steelers didn't get flagged for offsides (both on that series, iirc), but they did zero replays. there are lots of times, upon replay, i see i'm wrong about offsides, that the defender cut it close but was okay. so for the steelers offsides, i truly don't know.
zimv20 said:
He was talking about at the time...as he was on the sidelines waiting for the challenge to be resolved..he and Bill C were talking, Ben said to Bill "coach I don't think I made it.."
However, he then said that a 4th down QB sneak would have been the next play, not a field goal...so who knows...it's over now...it is what it is..
I think the best description I've read of NFL versus soccer, rugby, Aussie rules ect. is that NFL is like a Turn based video game...do your thing...stop figure out your next move...do your thing...whereas the other more global sports are more non-stop. I can totally see how people that are used to soccer ect. would see the NFL as odd...
All the pads, all the $, oh well, like the superbowl it is what it is...
I'm not a fan or hater of either team, and I thought the officiating was pretty awful.
Awful enough that I think they Seahawks would have won the game if not for some of the calls that were made against them.
Again. Not a fan OR a hater of either team, just my objective opinion.
Awful enough that I think they Seahawks would have won the game if not for some of the calls that were made against them.
Again. Not a fan OR a hater of either team, just my objective opinion.