I almost gave up watching football because of that game. It was a joke of a football game, a game where the Seahawks had no chance to win, none, because the Steelers got the benefit of every let’s-describe-them-as-borderline call (and, in at least one case, NFL-acknowledged outright officiating error). I watch football to see which team is better; I do not know whether the Steelers or the Seahawks were better that day, because the officials never gave me a chance to find out.
Getting rid of Fisher would be absurd. The guy has consistently built winning teams with often middling talent. Remember way back when he took a team that had a mediocre QB, no real wide receivers, and a defense that had lost its best player (Pac Man was that good, until he went fully off the deep end) and went 13-3. I like to call that last year. 6 poor weeks doesn’t make him a bad coach.
Shall we do this again? Which calls do you think were incorrect? There’s one I disliked, and I disliked it when it was called against the Steelers as well in other games, but let’s hear what you have a problem with. I’m also curious about which was acknowledged by the NFL as erroneous.
The real problem with Super Bowl XL, and the reason why this persists today, is that you had two dipshits in the booth who dislike the Steelers, and gave the impression that things were unfairly called. One of them is still in the booth and still bringing it up on occasion.
You’re right, my bad. I thought you were making a justification for it somehow, but you weren’t trying to defend it.
I wonder if we’ll get it justified on that NFL access segment with the officiating head.
Edit: Or probably just swept under the rug. If this shit happened against the Cowboys or some other overhyped team, ESPN would be all over it. Against the Browns, not even a mention probably.
As they say you have to outplay the officiating. I don’t say that to justify the errors in that game but those errors happen all the time and the Steelers are on the wrong end at times too. I alluded earlier (even though I typed the wrong year, oops) to the Polamalu int against Indy that almost cost them their spot in that Super Bowl. Two seasons ago they ended their year on a scramble by David Garrard where the league acknowledged a penalty should have negated the play. They might still have lost but, as you say, we want to see the best team win, not the beneficiary of the calls.
I like the guy, I was just wondering what the sentiment in Nashville would be. And there is a feeling sometimes that a team has stopped believing in a coach, even if he’s a solid one like Fisher (who I am also sure would land a good HC job almost immediately.)
And seriously, 59-0? How unprepared were the Titans for THAT game? Fisher was channeling Denny goddamned Green.
Like I said previously, the Browns will probably get one of those official apology letters from the league, suitable for framing. There was one year that the Steelers seemed to get one of those just about every week.
The local station reported this morning that Titans owner Bud Adams has said that he will not make any coaching changes during the season. So Fisher presumably has 10 more weeks to show significant improvement.
I remember three calls being questionable (these are just what spring to mind first):
[ul]
[li]The offensive pass interference call that negated a Seattle TD. It was close but Hope was stopped by the receiver pressing off him. Could have gone either way I thought. If I were a Seattle fan I would have been pissed though.[/li][li]The Roethlisberger TD. Also close, I thought couldn’t tell and still can’t tell for sure. I don’t know what to say about that one. They called what they called. I didn’t see enough to overturn it either way if it had been called differently.[/li][li]The holding call on whoever “held” Clark Haggans. The one egregious mistake I can remember. At the time I just figured they reported the wrong number. I have no idea which play the league apologized for; they should have received one for that play I think.[/li][/ul]
I remember the silliest penalty in the superbowl was when Matt Hasselbeck got called for an illegal tackle or illegal block or something something when he attempted to tackle the ball carrier on an interception return.
That’s the one I was rererring to. I think that’s an asinine rule, and I hate it whenever it’s called. And I say that not because I’ve had the experience of being a linebacker looking at two huge pulling lineman coming at me with the ballcarrier running behind them. I swear.
The holding call was righteous. it was a hold and it kept Haggans from sacking Hasselbeck, waich is the only reason that he got the pass off. There’s a beautiful shot of it on the commemorative DVD. I also remember Madden and Michaels showing a replay that didn’t even have the holding in the shot, and having a conniption, helping cement this bullshit in people’s mind.
It’s one thing to say that bad calls go both ways when they’re happening at game speed and involve at least some judgment: a ticky-tack pass interference call at a critical moment, a non-call on offensive line holding, the spot of the ball itself. Even Ed Hochuli’s infamous “inadvertent whistle,” which clearly DID change the outcome of a game, was a single in-the-moment slipup that couldn’t be reversed after the fact.
This was none of the above, though. You extend the chain and look to see if the ball is there or not. Pretty unambiguous. And if you need to stare at it for a second to really be sure, not that you should need to, you can, because it isn’t going anywhere. It’s completely static. I’ve seen some piss-poor officiating in NFL games, but I’ve never seen anything like that before.
Illegal block. On a change of possession (e.g. interception return), it’s illegal to block low (but not to tackle low). Hasselbeck dove low to tackle the ballcarrier, but in the process appeared to trip up a blocker. Upon review, you can see that he never actually touched the blocker, who jumped and fell over Hasselbeck but just barely missed making contact, but it’s understandable how the ref could make the mistake he did.
Can I just mention that no matter how many times I see highlights of that pigeon flying down on kickoff coverage for the Raiders it never ceases to amuse me. I love the timing of it, the way the bird’s feather matched the Raiders unis, the way it seemed to keep pace and stay in it’s lane and the way it came to stop just at the point of attack. Though I suppose it shied away from contact, rookie mistake.
There’s no end to the jokes that could be made there considering how crappy the Raiders are and how surprising the win was. I want to credit the bird. Or perhaps Radagast was secretly involved. That they beat the Eagles of all teams is just such a delicious irony.
I agree, I thought it was complete and total bullshit. The refs had yellow and black stripes on that call. Goodell was on the red phone. Something! Why call that, and if you do, on the game’s biggest stage, why no review?
Sure. In order of egregiousness: the NFL has acknowledged that the ridiculous low block call on Hasselbeck, made while he was trying to tackle a ball carrier, was in error. It was a terrible call, the worst of the questionable ones.
The offensive PI called against Darrell Jackson in the end zone was a joke. That call is never (well, obviously, not “never,” but you know what I mean) made on that degree of contact in the NFL. Obviously, if you’re watching through black-and-gold-colored glasses, it looks like PI, but from a disinterested perspective if that was offensive PI than about eighty percent of completed passes in the NFL come on uncalled offensive pass interference. This call directly turned seven points into four.
The Locklear hold was a terrible call. TERRIBLE call. I see someone downthread defending it, but again, the contact was passing and minor and I see absolutely no way to argue that Hasselbeck would have been sacked in the absence of that contact.
Roethlisberger may or may not have gotten in. I have no problem with the way that went down, actually; there was not evidence to overturn the call, once made, and I to this day don’t know if it was the right call or not.
So the first is pretty much inarguably an indefensible call. The second two, of course, are “arguable,” in that the definitions of holding and offensive PI are such that one can choose to interpret almost literally ANY contact as either. When a rule is fuzzy, it’s understandable if enforcement varies from game to game and official to official. What is not understandable is when enforcement varies by team - when minor and incidental contact is judged a penalty when one team does it and not a penalty when the other team does. There’s also a question of expectation - if a particular contact isn’t called a penalty 99 times out of 100, it shouldn’t be called a penalty the hundredth time, either. The point isn’t that the PI and the holding were wrong according to the spirit of the rules. The point is that:
Those calls would not typically be made in a game at all; and
The Steelers were not held to the same exacting standard to which the Seahawks were held.
And it sucked.
I’m pretty sure I’m capable of forming an opinion about a football game without help from the commentary. Thanks for the implied insult, though.