Super Bowl/Refs Give Steelers the Super Bowl

[Ox]

I guarantee he will never again work a Super Bowl. Not overturning the TD for Benji was spineless. All he is doing is hiding behind the "call on the field". ABSOLUTELY SPINELESS! You have to be able to make the right call. It was obviously a blown call, and the referee choked under the pressure. Every bounce of the ball seems to being going the Squeelers way for the last 7 weeks.

And that Indy game, where the NFL actually admitted they screwed up, fell outside those 7 weeks right?

[Sox]

Why are you guys here trying to convince us that the officiating didn't play a huge part in determining the winner?

We know it did.In fact,not only us,but the entire COUNTRY knows it did.Well except for the state of Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

[HoosierCat]

I guarantee he will never again work a Super Bowl. Not overturning the TD for Benji was spineless. All he is doing is hiding behind the "call on the field". ABSOLUTELY SPINELESS! You have to be able to make the right call. It was obviously a blown call, and the referee choked under the pressure. Every bounce of the ball seems to being going the Squeelers way for the last 7 weeks.

And that Indy game, where the NFL actually admitted they screwed up, fell outside those 7 weeks right?

Oh, by all means, no. The Steelers had their own referee-created near-death experience in the Indy game. But that only strengthens the impression that blown calls are deciding games (ask the Bucs).

That it's the Steelers who are being widely seen as being given the game, in whole or in part, by the refs, is simply a function of them being in the game. Had it been the Bengals or Bucs or Pats or any other team who had won such a poorly called game, the same things would be being said of that team right now. And certainly, had Ben not made a game-saving tackle in Indy, there would be complete and 100% agreement that the refs were responsible for an Indy "win."

What has happened over the course of this just-completed post-season is that massive damage has been dealt to two of the NFL's most-cherished myths. Those being, first, that injuries don't determine the outcome of games, and two, that bad calls don't influence the outcome of games.

Anyone who has followed football, even casually, has been exposed to the cliched bromides about how these things "happen" and teams "have to overcome" them. Complain about them and the cry of "whining" will quickly be rolled out -- but anyone fasmiliar with rhetoric will know that such an accusation is just an ad hominem attack, an argument that seeks to divert attention from what the person is saying, rather than deal with the issue.

The reality is that injuries have a huge impact on teams' ability to win; that was demonstrated conclusively in an article done at the end of the 2004 season by bengals.com's Geoff Hobson. We saw it again in the playoffs. Not just with Carson Palmer, but in the Super Bowl, where the Seahawks lost Marquand Manuel early. His replacement, Eric Pruitt, got burned on both the big Willie Parker run and the Ward TD pass.

Likewise, we saw horrible officiating almost certainly cost the Bucs a win, submerge the last of the Pats' hopes for victory, nearly advance Indy to the Super Bowl, and finally now be widely credited with giving the Steelers a Super Bowl win. Even commentators who stick to the old cliches and whining charges will eventually include an admission that officiating has been poor and the league needs to do something.

And it likely will. Despite the injury myth, the NFL has continually taken steps to stop practices that result in many injuries, from the cut block to the horsecollar tackle; reportedly they are now taking a look at the rules for hitting QBs below the knees, thanks to the Palmer injury. What they do to improve the officiating I don't know (a better integration of technology would be a good start) but unless they want things to continue to slide downhill, they will need to take steps.

If they don't, that downhill slide will continue, because the bad calls will continue, and public perception of the integrity of the sport will continue to go straight to h*ll.