The SB with the Steelers and the Seahawks was a joke. There were many bad calls and both teams played poorly.

I’ve seen or heard comments from fans of other teams that thought the same thing.

That was a holding on the QB run in the Steelers Jags game. Most of the time, that less severe holding doesn’t get called. The Ward call was bad also.

There was a holding call against the Balt DB at the end of the NE game. It was a hold and it was called to save NE undefeated mark. Most of the time, that doesn’t get called.

The refs were terrible in the regular season Indy vs NE game. Indy got some ridiculous calls then and again in the Indy vs SD in the playoffs.

Every week “Bagdad Bob” Pierra comes on TV and makes excuses and executes PR for the league. Rarely do we get these admissions of guilt. Refs are human too. They can make mistakes. Let’s hear about them. Replay should help correct mistakes. Lately, they call it right, but replay incorrectly over turns it. The rules aren’t published for the fans to see. They are vague and left open to judgment and interpretation. Games are not consistently called week to week or the same by all refs. There is a definite slant toward the home team or the elite teams in the league.

I’m happy to see Gerry “he barely got the second foot down” Austin go. He was terrible. I also read the league wants to better enforce holding this year.

I’m hoping too see improvement in the quality of officiating or I’m going to start to tune out just like I did for the NBA.

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My bigger problem with zebras is these geezers are too blind or lazy or just plain incompetent to even get offsides calls correctly. Offsides is not left up to the refs to interpret like pass interference or holding. It either occurs or doesn’t. Witness the Giants in the Play-offs. On their first series against Dallas, they actually go 3-and-out but because the ref is legally blind he makes a bogus offsides call against DeMarcus Ware and they get a do-over and it leads to a 7-0 lead. Fast forward a week later against the Packers, where KGB is a good 2 yards offsides and clobbers Eli yet guess what? No call. I don’t think the officials are necessarily corrupt, just badly incompetent. Get rid of the old gimp lawyers moonlighting as refs and hire full-time officials who are actually under 40.

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In fact, in the Jags-Steelers playoff game in question, Madden and Michaels attempted several times during the game to raise the spectre of SBXL by inferring a pattern of calls favoring the Steelers (e.g. missed penalties, favorable instant replay challenge calls, etc.).

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And like others said, the head of officiating went through the “bad” calls in XL and they were all correct. Haggans got collared on that holding play. And Jackson needs to be smarter than to push off in front of the ref.

Anyways, it was obvious that Hampton, Harrison and Haggans(I think it was him) were held during Gerrards gallup. But the Steelers should have never been that close to begin with, and then lost the game way back on the 3rd and 6 QB draw.

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I’m really glad at least one of you got the joke. My responses aren’t getting allowed somehow, but I’d love to point out at least that this was my intent (the joke, that is).

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I guess that’s the difference between Mike Tomlin and Mike Holmgren, right? One of them knows after one year as HC what the other hasn’t figured out during his entire “Hall of Fame career”.

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Nah, but nothing you can say will change the fact that the Seahawks were robbed that Super Bowl. You can find a hold on every play, but the PHANTOM one had to be called? There were lots of things that screwed the ‘Hawks for XL. It’s not in context to this current entry, but I will always maintain that the refs screwed them that game — rightfully. If the refs were remotely fair, the outcome of that game would have been different.

And no, I’m not a Seahawks fan.

Bears ‘08 Champs? (I am delusional.)

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As a Steeler fan the only call that had me so pissed i wanted to kill lol yeah i can get bad .. Was in 2002 in the Divisional playoffs we got screwed in Tennesee with fag boy floppin with ruffing the kicker . And god revenged that with blowing his knee out .

So they admit it was a missed call its not like they can go back and change it right ? So i wonder why they admit it anyway ?

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I lived in Seattle for 10 years. I watched the Sonics break everyone’s hearts by getting so close but just not all the way, I watched the Mariners shock the world and then break everyone’s hearts by getting so close but just not all the way, and was always my boss’ Sunday Cheap Date(TM) to the Kingdome since nobody wanted to go to the games back then (”Go Rick Mirer! he’s so much better than Krieg!”)… I decided that for whatever reason, Seattle was a city that had been cursed by the professional sports gods.

The superbowl that Seattle cannot ever forget seems to be just another chapter in a very long book of Seattle professional sports heartbreakers.

Blame whomever you want, but it sure as heck isn’t the Steelers’ fault. Kudos to Tomlin for being a class act and opting for the “no comment” route.

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Since you chumleys all insist on digging up XL, pay attention: the NFL publicly replayed the ref calls on nfl network. It showed how Jackson DID push off (better watch that play again, bri bri). It showed how Locklear DID hold (my God the guy practically choked Haggans from behind). And if you can prove that Roethlisberger never crossed the goal line, I want to know how. OH do I want to know how.

Of course, you’ll no doubt ignore the blatant block in the back of Roethlisberger during Seattle’s interception return, won’t you? Nah, in the minds of America’s paranoid and deluded, stuff like that never happened. Only the Steelers benefitted from the refs, right? Right.

Again, I invite you to contact the NFL — I’m sure they’ll be happy to provide you with the tape of their presentation.

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But honestly, everybody saw what happened that game. The incorrect pass interference call against Darrell Jackson. How Ben Roethlisberger never crossed the goal-line in the second quarter, and the initial call was down by contact. The PHANTOM HOLDING call that was huuuge. There was plenty worse than that. It took the Seahawks from the 1-yard-line allll the way back to wherever. And arguably that timeout called by Big Ben really shouldn’t have been allowed, as the play clock said 0 I think. But regardless, all of this going against the Seahakws? Get real, Stiller. Everyone knows what happened that game. Not that we aren’t all happy for The Bus and the Steelers. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind, nor a lot of other persons’ (60 something percent of ESPN.com people that took the poll after the game) and most sports columnists, too, that if the refs had called a fair game, the outcome would have been different.

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Thanks for the last two paragraphs but be a bit more objective here. In reality, the Steelers had some problems in that game and they would have been blasted by the Pats anyway, but it’s 4th and 2 and the league is admitting a mistake in not calling holding. If it’s called there the Steelers probably win. It comes down to that play, the poor play calling to that point is irrelevant. I know this is kind of a blog-style site but do we really need your opinions on whether we should be upset about it or not? Anyway, I don’t know why the NFL even releases these statements in the first place. What purpose do they serve?

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Every team gets bad calls from time to time. Good teams find a way to overcome — hell, the Steelers before XL had to overcome the braindead Polomalu non-interception, and they did.

The Steelers just weren’t the best team last season. Oh well.

And I’ve got to agree — as much as I dislike them, I always know we are in for one heck of a game when we have to play ‘em!

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Uh, Dude. That was against the Seahawks. Cost them a playoff berth and cost Dennis Erickson his job.

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The difference is, you won’t hear Steeler fans crying about the calls costing them a game — who was crying, CrapsLockKey dude? It’s PFT that reported the news here. We all knew it was holding back then, so this isn’t exactly news. I’m afraid you’ll have to make up garbage elsewhere.

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I find it amusing that the point of the story is that Steelers Organization didn’t make a big deal out of the missed call. They didn’t say anything during the game and haven’t since. See, it is called playing the game and taking the good with the bad. I am so glad I don’t hold bitter feelings over something so petty that I let it cloud my analytical and critical ability to properly judge the content of an article(s).

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I’m a big time Jag’s fan and I look forward to games against the Steelers like no other on the schedule. Always know you’re in for a classic, regardless of the outcome.

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All in all great game from two teams that always have classics when they go head to head. I look forward to those Steelers games like nothing else on our calendar.

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All the Steelers fans I’ve talked to, however, don’t consider that one play to be their undoing — they blame their rookie head coach for trying for two when they were 12 yards out. They blame the overall playcalling, not one penalty.

And those of you who bring up Super Bowl XL… c’mon, you must really dislike the Steelers, because the only bad call on that game was the Hasselbeck block after the interception. Hell, I don’t like them and I can see that.

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Pretty nice to see that unlike some others *cough*, the Steelers brass had the common sense (and maturity) to decline to comment on the matter.

As long as humans referee games, there will be errors - missing calls, phantom calls, poorly-interpreted rules. That’s a fact of life in the NFL, until they get some kind of human recognition driven laser guided automatron refereebots. Every year, every game, every superbowl will have blown calls, with some being real whoppers.

Remember Vinny’s freaking HEAD being misidentified as a football in the playoffs a few years ago? Glad that didn’t happen against the Seahawks, or we’d still be hearing the skwawking about it. Good grief!

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–Numerous dropped passes
–Missed field goals
–Mismanagment of the clock at the end of the 1st half and the end of the game
–Inability to stop the trick play the Steelers ran that everyone knew was coming at some point in the game
–Inability to stop Willie Parker’s 75-yard touchdown run
–Interception by Hasselbeck
–Continuously punting the ball into the end zone rather than inside the 20

Those are the REAL reasons the Seahawks lost, but it’s much easier to blame the officials I guess rather than place the blame on the players and coaches.

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no biggy though, our conciliation prize would have been to go up to foxboro the next week and have brady set a record passing performance against the steelers instead of the jagoffs.

so it would have ended the next week anyway, but im glad all the controversy actually had truth and it wasn’t all just steeler-biased fans who thought it was holding.

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Also, Steelers fans probably understand what happened in that atrociously officiated Super Bowl victory over the unfortunate Seattle Seahawks. Now THAT was bad.

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