Monday, February 06, 2006

BREAKDOWN OF THE OFFICALS MISCUES

The talk on this is out of control and 95% of what I said last night was not heard correctly so I thought I would write it all down.

Here is my take on the calls and the officiating which I said last night was awful, was an embarrassment to the league and definitely was influential in the game



D-Jack TD offensive pass interference
-- I can somewhat understand why the call was made since it was directly in front of the official and it had all the bearings of offensive pass interference. However, in reality it was a terrible call that cost the Hawks a touchdown.

Big Ben TD – The mechanics of the official were brutal, when he runs in from the side he has his hand up signaling 4th down and then on the second replay you can see when he raises his hand and it is when Michael Boulware walks in front of the officials vantage point the official then sees the ball in the end zone that he raises his arm for a TD. That makes the difference because the head official Leavy has the lowest % of overturned calls in the last 3 years so he was going to keep the call on the field no matter what the call was.

D-Jack TD on the bomb at the end of the 1st half – this is D-Jack fault. He has to get feet in. That is a lack of focus. But what infuriates me on this is that it was close, in fact I think it was a TD, his second foot knicks the pylon before his next foot knocks it over. What is overwhelming is that the Steelers call a TO and the guys upstairs never review the play. How can that be, How can they not review it or take another look at it when there is a timeout on the field.

Locklear Hold negating play to the 1 – Honestly I don’t know enough to understand what is and what isn’t holding. However, I will go with what Madden and others who I know said and they think it was an awful call. There has been a good deal of talk about whether or not the Steelers were offsides on this play and the next. I went frame by frame and didn’t think it was offsides, but it is obvious that they had figured out the snap count the Hawks were using or that Tobeck or Hasselbeck did something right before the snap, because they were moving unnaturally.


SUMMARY
There is no doubt in my mind that the Hawks were responsible for this loss with their own mistakes. The next question is if these calls were all made correctly or mechanically correctly would the Hawks have been able to overcome their own errors?
The officiating had a huge impact on the game, the flow, etc. That is undeniable.

At the same time, the Hawks inability to finish drives. The Hawks inability to make plays and moreover the Stevens and Engram drops were huge. The injury to Manuel put the onus back on Ken Hamlin for his poor decisions in Pioneer Square, the injury to Bernard took away a huge play maker. The Steelers took advantage of that.

The officials were an influence on the game, more so then the NFL should ever allow. Did they determine the outcome of the game, that is up for debate.
Was the officials inadequacies intentional and part of a fix or a conspiracy. No. Get real that is crazy talk.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great analysis of both the officials, its influence and the ridiculous arguments that the game was fixed. Debatable to horrible calls, but outweighed by horrible breakdowns by the Hawks. They did not rise to the occasion when they could have. Now can we end the comparing Hasselbeck to Montana columns?

Anonymous said...

Locke, you're right in the sense that the Seahawks should hold themselves accountable for their mistakes. In addition, give credit to the plays the Steelers completed. But, it appeared nearly every time the Hawks made a big play it was called back. In addition, there were a few other calls that you didn't mention that killed momentum. Also we know how important momentum is, especially to the Hawks offense. It's one thing to recover from one bad call, but quite another to have to recover a bad call on every positive drive. What happened to letting players play the game?

Also, you said :

"Was the officials inadequacies intentional and part of a fix or a conspiracy. No. Get real that is crazy talk."

Seriously, why is that crazy talk? Is there corruption nearly everywhere, but the NFL? After looking at several calls and non-calls that those officials were influenced one way or another.

"You can observe a lot just by watching." -- Yogi Berra

Anonymous said...

http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/polling?event_id=2011

Go to the link and do the poll. The nation is on our side. THE REFS MADE A JOKE OF THE BIGGEST GAME OF THE YEAR

Anonymous said...

The real question I have is with the NFL. Will they come out and admit their mistakes and make some necessary changes, or will they let this thing get out of control?

In my opinion, the call on Locklear was the killer. We would've had the ball on the 1 and without question, we'd score to make it 17-14. No way Steelers come back after that. How in the world can you call that holding and NOT call 1 holding penalty on the Steelers throughout the ENTIRE game. This officiating crew undoubtably hurt the integrity of the game (national polls agree). I don't believe the game was "fixed", but I truly believe there was a bias entering the game.

Anonymous said...

50/50 Situations. The pointspread seemed about right considering that it was essentially a home game for Pittsburgh. That means the game was pretty darn close to 50/50. What transpired in the game was enough to tilt things in Pittsburgh's favor. Was officiating part of that? Absolutley. So were big plays which Pittsburgh certainly had. What troubles me is that the officials should aim to be seen and not heard at the Super Bowl. They were noticeabley swayed twice by the body language of Pittsburgh players. They had all season to train for a game that would be exceptionally close. They needed to go with their instincts and not think as much. They needed to realize they would dramatically effect the outcome of the game with any call they made. Personal fouls or facemasking are easy. Make those. As for the others, play on!

Anonymous said...

I completely disagree with Locke's statement, "the Hawks were responsible for this loss with their own mistakes". Seriously, has Locke ever played the game? Two penalties were indisputably criminal and changed the outcome of the game!!! Who cares if there were dropped passes?! When the system fails, there are no winners. History will remember this game as a "blue screen" crash.

--JohnN

Anonymous said...

Last night, Tom Jackson, Michael Irvin, and Ron Jaworski Unanimously agreed that the officials changed the outcome of the game. Former players that get it.

--JohnN

Anonymous said...

Yes, they did all turn around and say Pittsburgh deserved the win after unanimously agreeing that the officials changed the outcome of the game. That's known as the "intellectual" answer.

The Super Bowl highlights will be crappy, because of the officials. Imagine how great the game would have been if there was a change in the lead? It's in the NFL's best interest to improve and prevent this system failure from occurring again.

I'm a football fan first, and a Seahawk fan second.

--JohnN

Mike Barer said...

Really, I think they have an axe to grind with Coach Holmgren after he went public with an NFL meeting last fall.

Anonymous said...

i want to throw my two cents in for a "fix" of the game by the officials. first of all, think of who was betting on the superbowl. let's face it, the seahawks have not been a good bet for the last 25 years. i bet you even people from seattle did not put money on the hawks, even with the points. the current steeler team has shown the ability to blow it in the playoffs and superbowl which was proven on sunday they played horrible. therefore, i believe the betting in vegas and around the country was anemic. therefore, the guys running the show in vegas probably looked at how every expert in the country was picking pittsburgh and decided to make a wise investment, but they weren't going to leave anything in doubt.

Anonymous said...

"A questionable pass interference call goes against Seattle? Someone might think it curious to discover the official who made the call is from Pittsburgh."
--By Tim Keown

If this is true, that's adding fuel to the fire!

My .02 is that many of the mistakes were due to the bad calls, lack of calls on the other end, killed momentum, frustrations with the officials, etc. It's easy for someone who hasn't played the game to say that the players need to be above it all.

After so much crap, it's time to cut corners and take heads off versus containment. This is exactly what happened on the reverse. Watch the films. At this point in the game, do I blame the Seahawks for their play? For not keeping their cool? For blowing their assignments? Hell no.

The officials changed the outcome of the game and influenced the mistakes (exception Stephens). This isn't tennis you know.

--JohnN

Mike Barer said...

It's easy for us as fans to say "a good team overcomes bad calls" But if your on the field, playing a another champion caliber team, momentum is everything. That's not to say we would have won it if every call is perfect, but even if the Jackson call is correct, it's hard to take points off the board and for a team to keep it's momentum.

Anonymous said...

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NFL/Super Bowl cartoon - funny stuff!