Running NFL thread 10/22

Sorry, I thought you were referring to the Super Bowl there. Read it wrong.

 

I can agree with you that it was a badly officiated game. I was also a badly played game, especially as Super Bowls go. Of course I wish that the Steelers had played as well in the Super Bowl as they did in the three playoff victories that got them there. They would have blown the Seahawks off the field and nobody would have bothered to talk about officiating. Because the Seahawks really didn't play well at all in that game.

Hell, the Steelers still nearly blew the game open in the third quarter, until Roethlisberger's interception deep in Seattle territory put the Seahawks back in the game.

I just think the idea of it actually being intentionally fixed by the league is ridiculous.

 

Both teams played like dogshit. It was far and away the worst Seattle played all season. But they had some help.

Look, I've never been a poopypants about officiating. Since the invention of the forward pass, complaining about the refs has been a refuge for pussies, spoil sports and morons unable to inspect an outcome with a clear mind. You swallow it as Part of the Game, favorable or unfavorable, and I'm of the belief that calls will even themselves out over the course of a 16- or 19-game season.

But not over the course of a four-quarter game, and this game was heinously mismanaged. It did not reflect underlying probabilities that bad calls cancel each other out (as they often do in an NFL game). It did not reflect balance in any way, shape or form. And I have a difficult time accepting that a team which had been disciplined and unaffected by penalties in its previous 18 games would shit themselves so badly in the 19th.

 

You mean the 85 Bears?

 

Obviously

 

I don't know, LJB. The Steelers were somewhat of a big story heading into Detroit. Isn't that Bettis guy from the area? I recall hearing something about that, but I can't entirely recall.

 

Jerome Bettis from Detroit! Agh! I'd nearly forgotten.

 

To me, the penalties are part of playing badly. That's really what a penalty is, a player making a mistake. Just like the mistakes that allowed Parker's TD run or Roethlisberger's long pass to Hines Ward after he scrambled to buy time.

If you're not playing well on the offensive line, it leads to holding penalties. If a receiver is having trouble getting open quickly enough, it can lead to an offensive pass interference call.

My biggest problem with the comments about the game being fixed. I think heinously mismanaged is a bit much. Most of the "bad" calls are open to interpretation.

Roethlisberger's touchdown, for example. The replays really weren't that conclusive, not enough that you could overturn what was called on the field. I think if the officials had initially ruled he was short, that would have stuck, too.

The offensive pass interference call in the end zone? The receiver put his hands on the defender and pushed. Was it a ticky-tack call? Absolutely. Incorrect by the letter of the rules? Absolutely not.

Same with the key holding call on Blackshear. That's why Parcells was critical of it. It wasn't the wrong call. He did reach across Haggans' body. That's a hold. Again, I'm not sure I would have called it in that situation, but the official that threw the flag wasn't wrong.

One team being penalized more than the other may look bad, but it's not proof of anything. Sometimes one team just does more things to be penalized for than the other does.

Again, apologies to those who couldn't give a shit. But I can keep going here. lol

 

Here's a question for the Steelers fans from someone who could care less about last year's Super Bowl. If the shoe were on the other foot, and the Steelers came up short due to several controversial, if not blatant, bad calls, would you have let it go by now?

I'll hang up and listen.

 

Oh, I'd probably still be pissed. I wouldn't say it was fixed, but I'd still be angry at the officials.

Hell, I'm still pissed at Neil O'Donnell for Super Bowl XXX. Yeah, yeah, a receiver ran a wrong route on one of the ugly interceptions. Try looking where you're throwing next time, putz. That Larry Brown was wide open twice. Too bad he was playing for the OTHER FUCKING TEAM!

See? Told ya I was still pissed.

Maybe it's personal, though. O'Donnell once nearly ran me over. I was crossing a street in a crosswalk and a car that was coming barely stops in time. I look over and it's Neil O'Donnell at the wheel. True story.

 

Yeah, I would have let it go by now because they would have played like shit and didn't deserve to win in the first place.

Look, I realize some calls weren't popular by any means. But to point the finger at the officials as THE reason they lost, as opposed to part of the reason they lost, is lazy on the team's part and on the fans' part. The Steelers made three big plays. The Seahawks basically had none.

Seattle can blame the officials, but it amazes me how some of its fans still refuse to look at the team's performance as the overriding factor in that loss. As poorly as the Steelers played that day, the Seahawks were that much worse.

 

You'll never convince me the Bucs-Rams NFC title game in Jan 2000 was not fixed.

The NFL's looking at a Titans-Bucs Super Bowl, for which the O/U might have been 7.5, so it comes up with a wacky rule that's not really a rule to rob Bert Emanuel of a first down that would have given the Bucs a real shot to win it. So instead Kurt and Yoko Warner get two weeks on the national stage as the greatest out-of-nowhere success story in sports history.

OOP: Neil would have run you down, but he could never finish the job. One of the biggest jerks I've ever dealt with.