SUPERBOWL XL = Fixed by Refs.

[Diesel]

[Squawker24]

Agreed.

Very weak off. pass interf. call on Seattle in the endzone.

Rothlesberger did not score that touchdown, the ball never crossed the goal line.

[Squawker24]

Seattle got screwed.

4th qt., Seattle gets a pass down to the one yard line and the refs call a phantom holding on the right guard?

Next play, Porter with the big horse-collar and who would have thought, no call.

Next play, interception, Hasselbeck called for illegal block below the waist on the guy who intercepted it? That puts the ball on the 40 yard line. WTF

Steelers next possision on the good pass from El to Ward, Big Ben goes for the knees of a defender, yep you geussed it, no call.

I'm not a Seahawk fan at all but they got hosed big time.

[Squawker24]

Every one of those refs clearly remember what happened to the ref in the previous playoff game the Steelers played in where the ref made a horrible call and the next day had his house vandilized. Each one had that in the back of their mind and didn't want to piss off any Steeler fans. Chicken sh*ts

[Plainview1981]

Thank god Seattle didn't win.

[ATLJA316]

lol agreed

[Diesel]

But did they get all the Refs from Pennsylvania or what??

I have never seen such a collection of Bad calls. It irratated me so that I didn't want to watch the game after the first half.. But I gave it another chance... And it got worse.

Clearly, Ben did not cross the plan of the goal line.

Clearly, that was not offensive pass interference.. based on the fact that everybody had hands in and the defender had no play on the ball.

I can go on and on about some of those plays, but it's just useless...

[Diesel]

In fact, I was going for the Steelers to win because " I didn't consider Seattle a NFC team".. and I wanted Bettis to get one in his home town..

But after the game started, I could see the taint... This was a tainted victory for the Steelers. It sucks.

[Gray Mule]

Looked like the ball did break the plane of the goal

on replays. As he was going down, the ball appeared to

barley touch the line. That's all it takes. It was

THAT close.

On that long return with the pass interception, as the

Sttler player was about to catch him, the QB I think,

he was shoved in the back. No call. The runner went

several yards further before he was stopped.

I didn't imagine this. I taped the game. The block

in the back is plainly there but it wasn't called.

Refs don't always get all the calls correctly. They're

only human. We have instant replays, slow motion and

tapes to make our calls from. Some were what is called

tick tack calls. That pass interference call in the

endzone where the touchdown was nullified is one of these.

He DID shove the defensive player. Not hard. But, with

the official looking right at him, he got the call.

Both teams made glaring mistakes. That pass interference was one by the Seattle team. Bad clock management at

the end of the half and at the end of the game were

two others.

That pass that was picked off and returned against the

Steelers was another example. That pass should have been over the reciever's head and let him catch it going away.

If he missed it, no damage. Instead, the pass was low and

got picked.

In spite of everything, whether right or wrong, it was

a great game to watch.

[Squawker24]

Great article

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/5310192

How many times during the game did Madden and Michaels question a call?

Superbowl XL will forever be remembered for the questionable calls.

Quotes, All so so true:

"So, Paul Tagliabue, how does a team lose when it outgains an opponent by 57 yards, controls time of possession and wins the turnover battle? "

"Every single questionable, marginal or outright bad call went against the Seahawks."

"Then came Pittsburgh's first touchdown. Whether you think Roethlisberger broke the plane of the goal line seems to depend on which team you were rooting for. "

"After a sack, Hasselbeck threw a pick and then was penalized 15 yards for making the tackle. I'm not kidding. The same thing happened in the Indy-Pittsburgh game in the regular season. It's like the officials become so discombobulated during the change of possession that they just randomly start throwing flags. The call was that Hasselbeck had thrown an illegal block below the waist on the return. Never mind that Hasselbeck wasn't trying to block anybody and did, in fact, make the tackle. Just another terrible call that cannot be reviewed in Paul Tagliabue's NFL."

"As Madden and Al Michaels watched the replay they shared a laugh about a similar bad non-call in an earlier playoff game between the Bears and Panthers. This is what it has come to: Announcers comparing the bad calls happening before them to the bad calls from earlier rounds of the playoffs. Is this really what the NFL wants?"

"With Cris Collinsworth lobbying for pass interference to be eligible for review on Inside the NFL after New England got jobbed in Denver; Joey Porter inveighing against the league after the game in Indy; Young and Irvin railing at halftime of the Super Bowl; Baldinger being spot-on with his Instant Analysis critique of the officials; and Madden and Michaels wondering aloud about the officiating during the game ... is anybody in the league office listening?

Or can we pretty much count on next year's playoffs being dominated by the officials too?"

[Squawker24]

Quote:

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In spite of everything, whether right or wrong, it was

a great game to watch.

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Wrong, I'm not a fan of either team, I just wanted to watch some good football. That is no what I got. Very, very poor job by the stripes.

[Squawker24]

[joannes3000]

Quote:

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Thank god Seattle didn't win.

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Agreed also.

The calls definitely fell in favor of the Steelers though.

The touchdown replay - it was ruled a TD on the field so the replay would have to have shown proof AGAINST the call, not for the call.

The illegal block on Hasselbeck - that was indicative of the penalty calling.

The offensive pass interference - see above.

I would've liked to have seen a better called game in hopes that it was more competitive but it was still pretty good nonetheless.

[Plainview1981]

I will admit that Hasselbeck is currently better than Big Ben.

Matt I think has more mobility, can run the bootleg and probably a better arm.

[Lascar78]

yeah, I mean there were 2 big shady calls that went the steeler's way, but it happens. Refs screw up because they're human, just like the players miss plays sometime. The bigger the game the higher the nerves. I would guess that most of you haven't refereed much, because it's not as easy as it seems live. Those refs earned the right to be there by being the best over the course of the season.

The TD was clearly a TD by big ben though. Even my buddy sitting next to me in the shaun alexander jersey admitted it. It crosses the plane and then comes back before he lands.

Anyhow, I find it hilarious that when discussing basketball, people like Diesel will say that it's clearly only in the NBA and never in other leagues that you see bad calls and that that is proof that Stern is some evil mastermind, yet now all of the sudden the superbowl was fixed. I guess it's stern and tagliabue huh? Must be some joining of the evil forces planning on taking all sports over

Bad calls happen, they're a part of sports, and always will be to some extent as long as the referees are human.

Quote:

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"So, Paul Tagliabue, how does a team lose when it outgains an opponent by 57 yards, controls time of possession and wins the turnover battle? "

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Last I checked, none of those determine who wins, the score does. Last I checked, 57 yards isn't even that much over the course of a game. This reminds me of people who say that one team having more fouls than the other is proof of refs fixing the game, it's not. There are no rules that each team should have the same number of fouls regardless of how they play, there is no rule that the team with 50 more yards should win. You have to get it all the way to the endzone

The seahawks were consistently better on a play to play basis, but the steelers made huge plays while the seahawks didn't. Ben's huge pass, parker's record breaking run, and randle el's trick pass to ward. Those are the three reasons that the steelers won.

Yes the close calls went to the steelers but that is not why they won. If it was a 1 pt game you might have an argument.

[Diesel]

Quote:

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The seahawks were consistently better on a play to play basis, but the steelers made huge plays while the seahawks didn't.

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Come on. Everytime the Seahawks stepped up and made a big play, there was the ref with a suspect call. 3 TDs and Momentum... all thanks to bad officiating.

[Lascar78]

I must have missed all those TD's by seattle that were called back. I only saw one, and while it was a ticky tack foul, he did push off. I could be wrong but I don't think a TD gives you 11 points

What I did see is guys like Jerramy Stevens who couldn't hold on to the ball when they caught it

[drzachary]

Quote:

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This reminds me of people who say that one team having more fouls than the other is proof of refs fixing the game, it's not. There are no rules that each team should have the same number of fouls regardless of how they play..

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Unless it's Duke. Then, the foul discrepancy is clearly the result of biased/cowed officials.

[Diesel]

Yeah, and Big Ben threw no touchdowns and had a 21 QB rating.

That's beside the point.

Ben didn't cross the plane.

Seattle gets a pass down to the one yard line and the refs call a phantom holding on the right guard?

That was the weakest pass interference I have ever seen...

Calls were not balanced at all.

[Lascar78]

I'm not saying the calls were balanced, we've already established that. I'm saying they didn't cause the seahawks to lose. MAYBE if EVERY SINGLE ONE of the close calls went the seahawks way they would have had a slight shot. But if the calls were perfectly even instead of slightly towards the steelers, the steelers still win.

The fact is that the seahawks D got abused on the 3 big plays. That's the #1 reason they lost. It's not the refs fault that they allowed the longest running TD in superbowl history. The fact is a lot of their receivers / TE couldn't hold on to balls, hasselbeck horribly overthrew a lot of balls (after a good start), and they didn't go to alexander enough if he really is the MVP they think he is.

Ben's not passing for a TD is irrelevant, that's why he wasn't the game MVP. He didn't win that game, the whole steelers team did. They came up with enough big plays on offense from various sources. Their D did a great job of slowing alexander down and putting hasslebeck in 3rd and long, which he sucks at. They used their WR/TD's for trick plays.

Somehow I doubt that if the Falcons had just won the superbowl and Vick had run a TD in but not passed for a TD, you wouldn't be bitch!ng about it. The win is what counts.

Also Ben certainly got in on that TD, and even if you don't see it, you definitely can't overturn it. Most agree that it was a TD, so even if you don't see it, there clearly isn't indisputable evidence. They would have sneaked it in on 4th anyhow, total non-issue.

But hey, you're good at whining so keep at it. I'm sure Stern was involved too