More on Rooney Sr.'s tie to the President: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08314/926590-176.stm
Perhaps somebody did, but not the officials.
If that’s true, then my mistake. Michaels said that the official on the field got the message from above that the ball was a fumble.
AFAIK, inside 2 minutes, the upstairs replay official has the right to review any and all plays. He can’t be overruled by the on-field refs. So, even if the on-field refs said it was a fumble, they would (and should) have stopped the game for a review. Michaels gave me the impression that happened.
What’s up with the Harrison hatred? The guy was the NFL Defensive Player of the Year. He did nothing but bust his ass through non-called holding all year long, without complaining much.
On one play he delivers an open-handed smack on the back to a guy, and rightfully is called for a personal foul.
Suddenly he’s a character problem guy who the Steelers should get rid of? That’s just crazy.
FYI: Rooney Sr. usually would refer to “The Chief”, Art Rooney, Dan’s father.
I like the Bears. I’m not sure if that means I’m extra qualified to identify bad QB play …
Roethlisberger got a gift for the first Super Bowl win. In this last one, even with that last drive, he still was not the best QB in the game (though he does excel at throwing the ball away). Not that it matters, since his team still won. I don’t think he’s a top 5 QB in the league, and if he’s in the top 10, it’s a result of the league’s mediocrity. If Dilfer is four inches shorter, than the only reason he isn’t Dilfer, is because he has a second Super Bowl ring. I saw the “final quarter drives” stat for him, and I think that’s less a matter of him being a great leader/player than it is having a defense that can keep the team in games for him to get some lucky breaks and get a win. Other teams wouldn’t have the same chance to come back, because their defenses aren’t as good as Pittsburgh’s.
Polamalu may be a great guy. It really doesn’t matter to me. From a football perspective I think we’re farther into Favre territory with Polamalu than anyone realizes. He’s easy to identify because of the hair, and he’s on a good team. Announcers recognize him because of the hair, and as a result talk about him being a great player. The biggest game of the year, against a team that probably shouldn’t have made it to the game in the first place, and Roethlisberger and Polamalu were not better than their counterparts on Arizona, in Warner and Adrian Wilson.
It was a dirty play. I admit that I haven’t watched the Steelers throughout the year. I would be surprised if it was the first time he’s done something like that. Of course it could be my feelings of Hines Ward being a dirty player, seeping over to what I saw as a dirty play on the defense.
Wow. You may as well have written “I’ve never watched Ben Roethlisberger before in my life.” Ben is, to a fault, the least likely QB to just throw a ball away.
Okay, so clearly you’re just writing your opinion about things you have no awareness of. As long as you’re clear about it.
No, the booth official calls down to the on-field referee to decide whether or not the play should be reviewed, but it is always the referee who does the actual reviewing.
It was, in a word, incomprehensible that they failed to review that play. Just totally dumbfounding that they could let the game end without a review.
Missed the edit window, and I could have been clearer. The booth official decides, in the last 2 minutes, whether or not any play should be reviewed. Once he signals down to the ref, the ref then goes to the sidelines and reviews the play in the usual fashion.
In the end, I think it probably was a fumble - but there is no way on God’s Green Earth that that play should not have been reviewed.
I’m tempted to ask who the “best” teams in the league are. Of course, I don’t have to, because the best teams are the teams who are able to win the games that count.
The Colts? Outside of 2006, Peyton is nothing but a choker when it counts.
The Giants? Without Plaxico, Eli was completely lost.
The Patriots? They can complain all they want about not getting into the playoffs, but the formula is simple. Win your division. They didn’t.
The Titans? All you have to do is beat the sixth seed in your home stadium to get to the championship game. They didn’t.
The best two teams were the Steelers and the Cardinals. Sorry to hear that you disagree with results.
You’ll be back. And so long as you aren’t playing the Steelers again, I’ll be pullin’ for ya.
Maybe I can’t speak for all Steelers fans, but I watched the Atlanta game, the Carolina game, the Philly game. The Cardinals absolutely belonged there. And I came to fear them (and rightfully so) for the last two weeks.
That being said, I think they arrived a year or two early. They have been my sleeper pick for the last couple of seasons and they actually took me up on it this year. With their new found confidence, toughness and ability to finish, they’re definitely a lock to win their division next year and will likely be a higher seed than they were this year. Best of luck to you next season.
Yes, I agree. If I didn’t make that clear, my apologies. The upstairs guys buzz down when they think a play should be reviewed. As I understand it, they do a quick review before buzzing down. So technically, they did review it, and chose not to have the on-field ref go under the hood. But you are correct that once it’s buzzed down, the referee on the field has the final say.
I agree that the play should have been reviewed though. I think the fumble call was correct, but they should have reviewed it.
For three quarters this was a tight game that wasn’t being played all that well, lot of penalties and such, although Harrison’s play was an all-time highlight. And then in the fourth quarter it turned into something else entirely. Both quarterbacks stepped way up and the conclusion was outstanding. To have two straight Super Bowls like this is terrific. I turned to my brother at the end and told him how spoiled he is: over the last decade, most Super Bowls have been at least very good. Years before that the game had a reputation for being an annual letdown, usually with the NFC East destroying whoever crossed its path.
The idea of anybody being “the worst quarterback to win two Super Bowls” is absurd. Roethlisberger wasn’t great for most of the game, but he made some big plays by avoiding sacks, wasn’t at fault for the one interception, and was absolutely clutch on the last drive.
Bringing up for current discussion John Madden’s premonition that Harrison should intercept that ball. I am selling tin-foil hats in case anyone is interested.
I didn’t hear the prediction, but I will say this about the Steelers defense. They’ve done a good job of being able to turn the game around when we need them. I’ve seen a few situations where the Steelers needed to stop an opponent in a critical situation and the defense has not only stopped them, but wound up with an interception or a fumble recovery. Speaking of that, Brent Kiesel’s probably going to get overlooked, but his recovery of Kurt Warner’s last fumble was the final nail in the coffin. Kudos to Lamar Woodley, too, for making that play. If it wasn’t Lamar Woodley who did it, please let me know. We’re going to hear a lot more about Harrison, Rothlisberger, and Holmes for the next few days, but those two deserve credit, too.
Speaking of giving credit where it’s due, I read something in the paper here in Pittsburgh I thought the Arizona fans might like to see. After the game, Ben Rothlisberger went up to Kurt Warner and told him it was an honor playing with him and that Warner’s autobiography inspired him to be a better quarterback. That might not sound so good right after a defeat, but I’m glad Rothlisberger gave Warner the credit.
Non partisan guy chiming in. I thought it was a very exciting game, at least the endings of both halves, lots of good smash mouth stuff in the trenches, lots of thrills, chills and excitement.
One question I’ve always wondered about and a play during the penultimate Steelers drive brought it up in my head again. There was one run to the outside where the Steelers back (Parker?) and a Cardinals defensive back (Beyonce Knowles-Cromartie?) had hands in each others faces. A personal foul/ facemask penalty was assessed. But Parker’s hand was at least as much, if not more, in the DBs face than vice versa. You see a lot of stiff arms to the face, and in this case he was pushing the guy’s head back as well. Hands to the face and head by linemen is also illegal. Both of these and “horse collar” tackles are illegal because there is a risk of injury. So why does there seem to be no rule against the ball carrier jacking some guy up in his grill? Or is it also illegal and just never called?
The Cards have two tough decisions to make for next year.
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Kurt Warner. Does he retire? If not, do the Cards try to sign him again? What about Matt Leinart?
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Anquan Boldin. Larry Fitzgerald has clearly shown that he is the #1 receiver on this team and may very well be the best in the NFL. Boldin’s agent is Rosenscum and I’m afraid his contract whining is going to be too much of a distraction.
Still, it was a wild year. After the horrible games against the Jets and the Patriots, I never thought I’d see this team put together that kind of playoff run.
When Larry Fitzgerald was running in for the Cardinal’s last touchdown, was I the only one who thought of Bryan Westbrook taking a knee at the one in the game against the Cowboys? I know that they were not winning, but if he takes a knee at the one they have four plays to get in and most likely still score, more important take the clock below two minutes and maybe below one.
You don’t think that definition is a little lacking? It seems terribly flawed to me, in that it completely denies the role of randomness in outcomes. In the regular season, if the best team in the league plays an average team, it might win 80% or 85% of the time, but they’ll absolutely lose sometimes. After a loss, however, no one says “Gee, I guess that 7-7 team is actually better than that 12-2.” Why don’t they say that? Because there are results to come that will very likely belie that claim. In the playoffs, however, since the excellent team that lost will play no more games this year, you can say “Ah-ha! They weren’t actually all that good,” and there’s no risk of being made to look foolish in the coming weeks.
So, for those who hold that “the best teams are the teams who are able to win the games that count,” I see two possibilities. The first is that they think there’s something special about playoff games that makes the best teams immune (or nearly immune) to being defeated by inferior teams. I fail to see how that is not absurd. The second possibility is that they’re choosing a definition of the “best teams” that is entirely descriptive, with no *predictive *value whatsoever. This you can do if it pleases you, but what’s the point? You already have a term which fits that definition perfectly: “champion.” The “best team” should be the team that was most likely to win the championship.
It’s just a stiff-arm: the ball-carrier is allowed to put his hands on the defenders face in a way that, say, offensive lineman are not (though he’s still forbidden from grabbing the facemask).
Nitpick, I think that play was Stevie Van Sandt-Cromartie driving Santonio Holmes out of bound on a short pass, not Parker on a run.
I’m going to disagree with what Varlos said. The stiff-arm is technically illegal and it violates the no hands to the face rule. The NFL issued a memo in the previous off-season that was supposed to direct officials to start calling that penalty. That said, it very rarely gets called, even after the point-of-emphasis on it this season. Personally I think they should rewrite the rules to allow it for ball carriers so that it’s no longer a gray area, but as they are written now that is technically illegal.
Ironically, that facemask penalty on George Jefferson-Cromartie probably shouldn’t have been called. He didn’t grab and twist the head with it and I think that prior to the rule change it would have been considered a 5-yard incidental facemask. According to the rules that should have been a no-call as it looked like a minor infraction to me.