What A Fucking Waste Of Time

I took me a long time to finish this entry. I started it a couple days after the Super Bowl, but it took me a week to finish it. I’m sure it’ll probably draw a lot of comments from Pittsburgh fans…

An NFL commercial on TV the day after Super Bowl XL had me smiling at the irony. The ad showed fans wearing team jerseys, watching games on TV, playing football in back yards, tailgate parties, and basically friends and families enjoying the NFL. Somewhere in the middle, there’s a shot of a Super Bowl, and the narrator says, “The Super Bowl; as American as America gets.” The irony comes in when you think of the colossal scams of Enron, Tyco, Worldcom, Global Crossing, and Adelphia.

Now, before I become the target of hate mail, I have to congratulate the Pittsburgh Steelers. They won the game, and there’s no taking that away from them. In the end, Pittsburgh played better and took advantage of opportunities.

However, officiating played a large part of Super Bowl XL. I know Seattle Seahawks fans have taken a lot of shit lately, being called crybabies and sore losers, but there’s no way anyone can call the officiating of Super Bowl XL “fair,” not even the League. And there are many writers, NFL players, commentators, and analysts that feel the same way.

During the Super Bowl, Pittsburgh was called for three penalties for 20 yards during the game, two of which were false starts, and none called in the second half. This from a team averaging 6 penalties for an average 54 yards per game during the regular season.

Seattle averaged 5 penalties for 49 yards per game in 2005, but was called for 70 yards in seven penalties in Super Bowl XL (which ties for the third-most penalty yards in any Super Bowl since 1980 and second-most in the past 10 Super Bowls).

There were four questionable penalties called against the Seahawks:

1. Darrell Jackson’s 16-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter. It was negated when Jackson was called for offensive pass interference. It was interference by the letter of the rule. Jackson did extend his arm. However, both players were fighting for position, and Jackson didn’t create any separation that gave him an advantage by doing so. If you’re going to call Jackson, you have to call Chris Hope of Pittsburgh for defensive pass interference, offset the penalties, and replay the down. On top of that, the back judge didn’t appear ready to call the penalty until Hope pleaded his case by gesturing the interference call. Watch the NFL Films footage (not ABC) if you don’t believe me.
2. Ben Roethlisberger‘s 1-yard touchdown dive in the second quarter. Referee Bill Leavy reviewed the play under orders from the booth, since it occurred inside the two-minute mark, and while video of Roethlisberger showed that the ball might have broken the plane of the goal line, he landed short of it and reached the ball over. Head linesman Mark Hittner didn’t seem so sure of it, hesitating before signaling touchdown after taking four steps from the pylon. Seemed to me he was influenced by Roethlisberger sliding the ball across the line after the hit by Lewis. Hell, Roethlisberger himself said on “The Late Show with David Letterman” that he didn’t think he got in.
3. A holding call against Seattle’s Sean Locklear early in the fourth quarter with Pittsburgh leading 14-10. That negated an 18-yard catch by Jerramy Stevens that would have put the ball on the 1 yard line. Locklear supposedly hooked Clark Haggans, but Haggans appeared to be falling to the turf at the time. Again, by the letter of the rule, it was holding, but the officials should call every play the same. That way, all players know what the officials will call, and it won’t be a guessing game. So, instead of first-and-goal at the 1 with the chance to cap a 98-yard drive with a touchdown and take a three-point lead, Seattle faced first-and-20 at the 29.
4. Three plays later, Pittsburgh’s Ike Taylor intercepted a Matt Hasselbeck pass. Hasselbeck went low to make the tackle on Taylor’s return and was called for a 15-yard personal foul for a low block. Someone needs to explain to me how a clean tackle can be called a low block. This was clearly a bad call. How can the NFL say there were no mistakes made? Check the replay. It shows Hasselbeck never made contact with the player he was supposed to have hit illegally, instead going straight to Taylor to make the tackle. The blown call put Pittsburgh at midfield, which allowed them to execute their game-winning gadget touchdown pass from Antwaan Randle El to Hines Ward.

With the exception of Mike Holmgren‘s comments at a “Welcome Home” reception at Qwest Field, no Seahawks have publically blamed the officiating. In fact, the Seahawks have blamed themselves for not playing as well as they did all season long. Sure, Jerramy Stevens dropped four passes; Josh Brown missed two field goals; Hasselbeck appeared to be playing desperation football, hurrying passes and threw an interception; and Etric Pruitt blew his coverage and allowed Willie Parker to score on a 75-yard touchdown run. Pruitt also blew his coverage of Hines Ward on the reverse option gadget play, leaving Ward wide open to catch the pass from Randle El. But in Pruitt’s defense, he was only a practice squad player signed on November 5. When starting safety Ken Hamlin was injured at a nightclub on October 17, Marquand Manuel took his place. When Manuel left the game in the second quarter with a hip injury, that only left free safety Pruitt to fill his spot.

Now, while the Seahawks may have played poorly, they did quite well for the first 20 minutes of the game. Darrell Jackson caught a Super Bowl record five passes in the first quarter. The defense held Pittsburgh to three straight 3-and-outs, and scored the first points of the game. Then came the onslaught of bad officiating that would be enough to break anyone’s momentum. On top of that, only a few “NFL experts” thought Seattle had the mettle to win. The ABC and NFL Network pre-game shows (thanks to TiVo, I watched both) were heavily focused on Pittsburgh and the made-for-football stories of Bettis and Cowher. Maybe Joey Porter was right when he thought the NFL wanted a particular team to win…

And before any of you “Stealer” fans start in, go back and listen to the sound bites of Joey Porter after the Indianapolis Colts game. “The world wanted Indy to win so bad, they were going to do whatever they had to do, man. The whole world loves Peyton Manning, but come on man, don’t take the game away from us.” Porter adds, “I felt they were cheating us. When the interception happened, everybody in the world knew that was an interception. Don’t cheat us that bad. When they did that, they really want Peyton Manning and these guys to win the Super Bowl. They are just going to straight take it for them. I felt that they were like ‘We don’t even care if you know we’re cheating. We’re cheating for them.’ “ Sounds familiar, eh?

Granted, Pittsburgh won that game against Indianapolis. But if they hadn’t, oh brother would there have been a shit storm of controversy brewing out of western Pennsylvania. Every towel-waving fan behind the steel curtain would have been crying foul, including Bill Cowher and Jerome Bettis.

So, yeah, looking at the poor officiating of Super Bowl XL, how can the Seahawks and their fans not feel cheated. The bad calls took the wind out of the Seahawks sails, and they were not able to recover. The bad calls had a direct affect on the gameplay of the Seahawks and cost them the game that they could have easily won.