As I sat in front of the television Sunday to watch the Super Bowl, I had difficulty deciding what was more disappointing by game’s end: the commercials or the officiating.
Unlike most Northwesterners, I tuned in Sunday with a neutral eye. Steelers or Seahawks, I could care less. But, whether you were pulling for the Northwest or the Northeast, the one-sided officiating was obvious.
Now, I’m not usually one to point blame at officials. I know blown calls happen during games, usually in favor of and against both teams.
Such was not the case in Super Bowl XL. Seattle has every right to claim conspiracy.
Obviously, the Seahawks flat-out did not make enough plays to win. It has been said many times that winners win, players make plays and losers usually do what Seattle did Sunday: cry foul.
But, I think they’re on to something here.
Take nothing away from the Steelers. They are a great team and deserve the trophy as much as anyone. But it must have been difficult for Seattle to overcome a fourth-quarter holding penalty that negated an 18-yard pass to the Pittsburgh one-yard line with Seattle down only four points. Seattle’s Matt Hasselbeck was intercepted later on the drive after the penalty and, to add insult to injury, was called for an illegal low block, which added 15 yards for Pittsburgh’s offense.
The “low block” was actually a legal tackle. Three plays later the Steelers scored on their third big play of the night to take a 21-10 lead.
This blown call came after a late flag in the endzone on Seattle’s Darrell Jackson after Jackson caught a touchdown in the first quarter. The call – offensive pass interference – wiped the touchdown off the board and the Seahawks were forced to settle for three points.
Even John Madden, who has been involved with the game of football for decades and is surprised by little, could not believe a few of the calls he witnessed Sunday. Madden griped, often, about bad calls, including the holding call in the fourth quarter, which prompted the veteran television analyst to declare that a referee could call holding on any play of any game.
If indeed Sunday’s officials were top notch, as most Super Bowl officials are required to be, the league is in serious jeopardy. They simply had way too much bearing on the outcome of the year’s biggest game.
I thought about the only thing that could keep me from heaving would be the typically humorous Super Bowl commercials. But even the ads were a huge disappointment, save for the early ones such as the Bud Light revolving refrigerator commercial, the Fed Ex commercial and a few of the AmeriQuest ads. The biggest commercial busts: Diet Pepsi’s brown and bubbly, Burger King’s and GoDaddy.com’s.
No matter how big of a bust those ads were, they were not worse than the officiating Sunday.
Referees had too much influence on Super Bowl
Daily Emerald
February 6, 2006
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