Because Kimo knocked Carson Palmer out of the game when I think you guys were behind and getting outplayed. Jon Kitna wasn’t good enough to lead the comeback.

Go up 21-0 in Indy and look like you’ll get the clinching score at 21-18 before the Bettis fumble. Big Ben makes the shoestring tackle and saves the game because Vanderjagt sliced the ball like a golf drive.

The AFC Championship game instead of the Patriots you got to face Jake freaking Plummer.

Basically the best set of circumstances for the Steelers helped in the same way the Seahawks got to play both wild card teams in their two games (we still would’ve smashed the Bears though ;-)).

…and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished the Seahawks fan I was talking to had some semblance of your perspective on this one.

I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with Leavy coming out and admitting errors in officiating. In fact, we could deal with a bit more honest accountability from refs with regards to games like this. And to be fair, the two plays I think he was referring to (the Locklear holding and Hasselbeck low block call) were pretty bad calls that shouldn’t have been made. I think some of the others (Ben’s almost-touchdown, offensive PI by Jackson) have been made into bigger deals than they would have been had the Seahawks won.

But the Seahawks didn’t lose XL because of blown calls. The Seahawks lost because they gave up the biggest of plays at the most crucial of moments. They lost because of bad clock management and missed field goals. They lost because of stalled drives, dropped passes and an interception so bad a guy with clubs for hands caught it.

I always compare this game to the Colts AFC Championship game in the playoffs two games earlier – the Steelers were handed some god-awful calls at the worst possible moments (not to mention shooting themselves in the foot with that Bettis fumble), foremost among them the Troy Polamalu’s interception being ruled dead (which, I thought, was a more obviously blown call in a more critical part of the game than anything in XL). Somehow, the Steelers dug in to hold on for the underdog win against a stacked team with the calls going their way. The Seahawks didn’t manage a similar feat in XL.

Bad calls are, and I think always will be, a part of the NFL, and I think in the long run it affects all teams evenly. For all the calls that went the Steelers way in XL, the gods decreed to look the other way in Jacksonville two years later during the collective holding that ensued on David Garrard’s victory scamper. James Harrison can be held on so many plays it becomes a running joke. So be it.

For all it’s dependence on instant replay, football is still a game officiated by human beings, and as long as human interpretation is a part of officiating, judgment calls like the Jackson PI and the Locklear holding call will continue to affect teams in game. One fanbase is going to be happy, one is going to grumble.

What drives me nuts about this Leavy statement and the ensuing coverage of it is that now we Steeler fans get to deal with a whole new wave of “Steelers are cheaters” comments, as if the Steelers were the ones calling the penalties or somehow had some manipulative influence on the referee performance in that game. We get a whole new wave of people arguing that the Seahawks most assuredly would have won the game, now armed with the “Ed Leavy said so!” argument.

I watched XL in a room full of Seahawks fans and left pretty embarrassed with the performance of my team. After a great playoffs, Ben had looked befuddled. A defense that had stifled Manning for a good part of the AFC championship game suddenly gave up big passing plays on almost every series. But the Steelers moved the ball when they had to, making big plays at critical times, and I think most guys on this site would say that’s why they won.

It’s sad, because prior to XL the Seahawks were my NFC team of choice. After that game, my being a Steeler fan became a problem for Seahawks fans (some of them my closest friends), and that persistent attitude turned me off to the team as a whole. I’m still hoping the team finds it’s way back to the Super Bowl, but now it’s so that their fans will quit whining about something that happened four years ago and quit trying to taint everything my team has accomplished in the years since.

Thanks, SS, for showing class here. I really do think the Hawks are headed in the right direction with their new coach and stacked draft class and I’m wishing you all the best in the years ahead. I wouldn’t put money on it, but I also wouldn’t be shocked to see you guys win a weakened NFC West this year.

I don’t think there is anyway you can possibly say it was clearly not a touchdown. I got the thing on DVD and its either the ball touched the goal line or was a millimeter shy. I honestly don’t think you can it was clear as day not a TD.

Cause I got it on DVD. Hell, even I, a Steelers fan, forgot about that fumble because all the attention has been on other calls. Scottd7 has an excellent point I totally forgot about. There was a fumble that the Steelers recovered but the refs didn’t give it to them. Can’t believe I forgot about it.

is a skidmarks fan, anyway. What the hell do WE care what any of those tool bags thinks?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

What Seahawks Fans Think pt. 2

Got to feel bad for Leavy, there he is in what amounts to a Pittsburgh home game, terrible towels placed on every seat, 99% of the fans and announcers openly rooting for pittsburgh to win. And then the game starts going the wrong way, Seattle’s actually the better team.. what to do. His whole career as an NFL ref hanging on how he does in this game. He must have made a call right then to himself, I can either call this thing honestly and risk my job, or I can go with the flow and do what everyone around me wants, everyone but those few freaks in gunmetal blue.

Choice was obvious. The only problem I have now is why is he saying he’s sorry? Nothing worse than a criminal trying to say he’s sorry later.

Sorry, as they say, “won’t cut it pal.”

To every Stealers fan wandering around these forums: Go home, be with your own kind, nobody in the Northwest will ever accept your fradulent titles as anything but. Keep trying though, your insistent demands are amusing, and just prove how phony deep down you know your team really is.

The NFL cheated for the Stealers in the 70s, they cheated big in super bowl XL, and they handed them yet another gifted title against Arizona. Every time some convenient story line already written — Franco Harris Immaculate Reception (and the referee back then saying how he was scared for his life if he called it for Oakland).. then the whole hoopla over Bettis in Detroit, the towels on the seats of an allegedly neutral game.. and then Az. outgaining pittsburgh in rushing and passing, but oh what a shock, 106 yards in penalties.

Face it pittsburgh you cannot win unless the referee and league cheats for you.

Where is the video of the ref calling it down and then changing it to a touchdown? I looked for it and cannot find it.

I came at that from a very reasonable angle. Am I passionate about it? Absolutely. Do I think we got jobbed? Quite a bit. Do I think it took away from the game as a football fan? Yes.

You came at it solely from a Steeler perspective. Basically your argument is “we won, you didn’t, bad calls happen (to you in the SB, to us in general) and get over it.”

“The Steelers have had tons of awful calls cost them before.” I don’t disagree. Ever had it happen repeatedly in the Super Bowl? Nope. Every team has tons of awful calls against them, us included. Still, we’re the only team that can say an official apologized for fauking up and missing calls against us in the Super Bowl. Sort of a different magnitude, isn’t it?

Ask casual fans of football, or passionate fans of other teams that have no inherent interest in that game, and they’ll generally agree that SB XL left something to be desired, as I stated, AS A FOOTBALL FAN. As a Seahawk fan its a bitter pill to swallow. As a football fan it’s a forgotten game, when it didn’t have to be if the officials wouldn’t have gotten in the way. It could have been one of the all time greats (to the entire country, not just western PA) and we wouldn’t even of had to win for me to feel that— we would have just not had a chance to win taken away, that’s all.

You really are splitting hairs when you say it is my opinion and an assumption that the hold was one of the bad calls. The official said, “It was a tough thing for me. I kicked two calls in the fourth quarter and I impacted the game, and as an official you never want to do that. It left me with a lot of sleepless nights, and I think about it constantly. I’ll go to my grave wishing that I’d been better … I know that I did my best at that time, but it wasn’t good enough … When we make mistakes, you got to step up and own them. It’s something that all officials have to deal with, but unfortunately when you have to deal with it in the Super Bowl it’s difficult”

I just checked the play by play. One thing I was wrong on— had we scored, it would have been around 5 minutes into the 4th quarter, not with 5 minutes left. However, there were only two penalties against us in the 4th. The holding call, and the “clipping” on Hasselbeck. Can we use some deductive reasoning and assume it was the holding call that took away a significant scoring opportunity he was referencing, or do I need to get him to literally state the play? Be reasonable, man.

I didn’t say the NFL was biased, nor did I say the official intentionally was. I asked you, if the roles were reversed, if you would feel it was a tad off. That’s all. Not sure where “loves the Steelers because he was born there” comes from, but it wasn’t me.

I was simply saying we felt long odds of getting a fair crack going into the game, and that feeling turned out to be… what’s the word? Prescient.

his exact words where

I kicked two calls in the fourth quarter and I impacted the game and as an official you never want to do that. It left me with a lot of sleepless nights and I think about it constantly. I’ll go to my grave wishing that I’d been better.

Also Bill Leavy is not the ref that was born and raised in Pittsburgh, it was the ref that called Jackson for pass interference. No matter how good or bad his performance was in calling the game, he should never have been allowed to ref that game to begin with.

And never will.

The girl from Seattle? She is the perfect example of the casual fan that you get to listen to FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE because the officials did a poor job. As I said above, it is a shame from a football perspective that the officials made the decisions they did, because it basically forced this upon you. We’ll never admit you won, because we will never feel the better team on the field that day got an equal chance to win.

It truly could have been one of the all time great SB’s, WIN OR LOSE, and we would have begrudgingly admired the Steelers’ efforts and endeavors on the field. But you have the officials to thank for that opportunity being taken from you.

Close your eyes for a second. Imagine this— a world where there wasn’t a Seahawk fan alive that is bitter about that game? Hard to fathom, isn’t it? Yet that could have been the case, had a couple calls— even a SINGLE CALL, the holding in the 4th, not gone against us.

But that isn’t the case, is it? So you’ll just have to take your SB victory that you believe is earned and we never will, and you get to deal with all the bitter Seahawk fans in return. Enjoy that win the same way the USSR enjoys its gold medal Olympic basketball victory in 1972— with the rest of the world either indifferent about it, or not acknowledging it due to the actions of the officials.

only Pittsburgh fans believe that game was well officiated.

That, my Northward friend, is complete BIRDSHIT! (see what I did there?)

Please provide me proof that anyone here says that game was called right down the line. You can’t do it, because neither side is saying that.

Yes, there were some cheap calls, but you will NEVER convince me they were “game deciding” ones.

Oh yeah, tell whoever runs that site of yours over there that I really appreciate him hiding my comments. Very mature.

“fact of the matter” is just a phrase, don’t take it literally. Of course those words I gave are my opinion just like yours are your opinion.

The “blatant” clipping call wasn’t blatant at all.In fact, if it was anything it would have been a block in the back, not clipping. It was close I’ll give you that, and really could have gone either way. Woodley may have pushed him in the side or it may have been in the back, but the refs didn’t call it because they didn’t see it or didn’t see it as a penalty. You also forgot to mention how Fitzgerald also committed a penalty on that play by running out of bounds and then being the first to touch the ball carrier. Can’t believe you are trying to discount the best play in Super Bowl history with a iffy penalty call…

Really? you asked a die-hard Cards fan if he got screwed in the Super Bowl?

I know that I have probably watched that Super Bowl game more than you have, in fact I watched it last night before I typed that post. No, I did not count how many times Steven’s dropped a pass but he dropped a few crucial ones. And yes, you’re offensive line held a lot, a good pass rush tends to do that to people.
And to claim I gave no evidence is asinine. Brown did miss two field goals, Hasselbeck did throw a horrible INT.

I never said the game was well officiated, don’t put words in my mouth. I said you can still win in-spite of bad calls (see Pitt’s latest Super Bowl). And Leavy, who made the calls, never said it was poorly officiated, he said he blew two calls. Big difference. One of the calls didn’t even matter really.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoxSFBHbA80

Also, notice the hold on Timmons that happens in the first 3 seconds of the play and is uncalled.

Anyway, Woodley makes the block around 27 seconds. When he goes for the block he initially has one hand on his chest and one on his back. The “defender” tries to avoid his arms and dips his shoulder which moves Woodley’s hand to his shoulder as Woodley is already pushing him. If you are talking about a clip on that play…I don’t even see one remotely close to being a clip.

I have friends that are Redskins fans, Ravens fans (go figure), Eagles fans, and Cowboy fans. All of them think SB XL was well-officiated, as does Mike Pereira.