Miasmatic Review

Bad calls.

Yesterday was spent watching the Super Bowl. I didn’t have a horse in the race so I didn’t really care, but I just love football. Since October I had been predicting that the Seahawks where going to make it to the big game, but I didn’t think they would win. I had predicted Indy to make it and take the prize. When the Steelers knocked out Indy, I thought it was a fluke and that Seattle would win. Well We all know how wrong I was on that one! Its okay, the Steelers didn’t win by 25 points so I have a crisp new $10.00 in my wallet.

I’m just going to start by saying I’m very disappointed in the officiating during the game. Every Steelers fan I’ve talked to thought it was okay and every Seahawk fan I’ve talked to thought it was poor. Fan’s of other teams are torn, but more of the ones I’ve talked to agree with me that there where some pretty bad calls made or in some cases, not made during the game.

Some of the bigger calls I saw made that I disagree with are:

1) Ben’s touchdown. I’m sorry but that ball did not break the plain until after he was down. However, they may claim there was not enough evidence to overturn the call. I think they are wrong.

2) The complete lack of offside calls against the Steelers. C’mon these guys where not only blatantly jumping the gun on a lot of plays, but in at least three, they had people lined up in the neutral zone. (Some will say that the Steelers had the cadence down. Except the ball hadn’t been snapped when they where crossing the line.)

3) We have yet another case of delay of game not being called, apparently in the playoffs you have an extra 2 seconds too snap the ball. On one the Time Out was called AFTER the clock was to 0.

4) Holding calls inconsistently called. On the Seattle comeback drive, they called holding against Seattle, which barely met the textbook definition of holding. Yet on other plays, there where holds that are more blatant being done and not called, including on a certain 75 yard run.

Before I go into the next play I question, I want to remind all of my readers that the little read and yellow lines on the field are not OFFICIAL. They are added by the networks to assist the viewers on the play. I’ve seen games where the lines have been off up to 3 yards, heck even the announcers will tell you they can be off by as much as 3 yards. On one of Ben’s passes, I’m not so sure he wasn’t past the line of scrimmage. I only caught the side angle of the play once (when it first happened) and it sure looked like he was past it. I never saw any of the replays from the same angle that included the sideline markers. I’m not saying this is a call that should be made; I’d just like to have seen that from a different angle so there was no doubt in my mind.

I can already hear some of you asking, “Are you trying to imply the ref’s and officials where against the Seahawks? What are you, some kind of conspiracy theorist?” No, I’m not saying that at all. I did however watch the game with someone that did and was convinced of it. All through out the game he kept saying it was a conspiracy in the NFL to keep the NFC from winning. The Colts/Steelers game was even used as an example. His belief is that the NFL wanted the Colts in the Super Bowl, but since the Steelers beat the colts by overcoming the NFL’s interference, the NFL decided to back the Steelers. He didn’t find it amusing when I made a tinfoil beanie for him to wear. But that was probably because it had chili-cheese dip on it when I put it on his head. (It was made from the foil covering they used to cover the dip with.) What I’m implying is that there were some bad calls made, and in every game, there is.

At least one penalty could be called on every play in a game. The Officials are humans, they make mistakes, I can forgive mistakes. I just want them to be consistent. If they are going to call ticky-tack holding calls, call them on both teams. If you’re going to ignore offside calls, then maybe they should ignore false starts as well. After all the controversy around bad calls made during the post season this year, I would have thought the NFL would have done everything to ensure that the biggest game of the year was called properly.

I actually thought it was a good game. I don’t like high scoring games. A great defensive game is more fun to watch in my opinion. The commercials bored me, there where only a couple that I thought where amusing and/or interesting. During halftime, I almost went into a rage. I was pissed that the NFL brought in the living dead to perform. Then someone told me that the Stone’s hadn’t died yet and it calmed me down. One of my friends I was watching the game with was in the band and he made this statement: “If this was my band and we sounded like the way the Stone’s are right now, people would tell us we suck.” He was right, they sounded horrible and I was less then whelmed by the power of the performance.

One last game of the season, the Pro-Bowl. Now I need to find a Pro-Bowl party to attend