Mike is STILL Blubbering.....

Gosh darnit, Mike, it's been close to 2 months since your inept team lost the Super Bowl with sloppy play and worse coaching. Can you please give the fans of the NFL a break and let them enjoy the free agency period and draft analysis without reading every day in the sports pages how you are still angry at the officiating in the Super Bowl. We get it. Ok? We get it. Really! Your comments right after the Super Bowl painted you as a passionate guy who was still a little hotheaded. Your comments now read as quite borish and what we've come to expect. The fact that you didn't get fined for your comments is still unbelievable to me. Even though Tags explained it away - you are still pretty lucky you didn't lose somewhere between 30-50k for your remarks. If you were half the man you say you are (well, for one your wife would be happy because then you'd only weigh about 2 bills) you should realize the commissioner showed you mercy and donate that money to charity. I'm sure there is a "Save The Walrus" campaign somewhere you can donate to. Call Paul McCartney as he probably has the number speed dialed on his cell phone. The head of officiating Mike Peoria sat with the owners at the meetings last week and AGAIN explained why every single call (with the exception of the tackle Hasselbeck made) was legit and you STILL want to whine about it. In retrospect, what would be interesting to hear from your blowhole (yes, I know, it's whales that have blowholes - but I like the way it sounded here) would be an explanation to the poor clock management your entire team showed near the end of the 2nd and 4th quarters. That's poor coaching. You were in so many blowouts this year you probably neglected to coach these situations. Nobody likes a whiner, especially in professional sports. If you remember just a few short years ago, the Steelers were eliminated from the playoffs on a field goal by the Titans in which they were allowed to kick it again after a miss because of a running into the kicker penalty. Our guy DeWayne Washington just GRAZED the kicker - who went down in an Oscar-worthy heap admitting on ESPN later that night that he was acting - and it cost us a legitimate shot at the Championship that year. Much like your comments right after the game, Cowher ran up to the official screaming "You cost us the game..." or something very close to that as I remember reading his lips. Here's the difference between you and Bill Cowher: a few days later after the emotion of the moment was over - Cowher apologized to the league, the official, his fans, the organization and said something to the effect of the officials followed the rules as they are written. He wasn't crying to the press 2 months later like a little girl with a skinned knee. Grow up, Mike. Until last year I thought maybe your earlier Super Bowl experience hinged on Brett Favre in his prime and had nothing to do with you. Seattle has been inconsistent since you've been there. You somewhat proved me wrong, but how are you now going to change the perception of NFL fans everywhere that you are a nothing more than a huge (and I mean huge) whiner? I'd start with an apology.

Upon Further Review

I rewatched Super Bowl XL last night on NFL Network's Game of the Week. It's sort of the Reader's Digest version which is edited down to 60 minutes of slow motion, Harry Kalas voice-overed clips. It was very entertaining to say the least because Bill Cowher was miked-up and hilarious. In no particular order, here are the things that stood out to me seeing the game for the second time:

D-Jack's pushoff looked worse when I saw the angle from further away and you could actually see Hope's knees react to the pressure. He actually "jumped" backwards about 6 inches. Since this all happened right in front of the ref, he simply had to call it. No doubt.

Ben's "phantom TD" as some people are calling it was most definitely a TD. What's funny is that he was telling people on the sidelines that he didn't think he got it in. Troy Polamalu went up to Coach Cowher and asked him if he wanted him to take it over the top (if they went for it on 4th down). I wonder if that's something they practiced?

Jeremy Stevens absolutely caught and made a football move before losing the football early in the game.

Bill Cowher screamed "CLOCK!!" about 15 times in a row late in the game when the officials failed to run the clock after resetting the ball after Townsend's sack. He looked like he needed to be medicated at that point. It made me laugh out loud. He did thatnk Bill Leavy after 6 seconds were put back on even though he asked for 10.

Someone on Seattle's sideline called Joey Porter a bleepity bleep coward in the third quarter pointing out that he was quiet the entire first half and was now talking smalck once they were up 14-3. I couldn't identify the player but he was a large white man leading me to believe that it was an offensive linemen.

Cowher asked Whiz (Ken Whisenhunt) for a gadget play to get something going and Whiz complied by calling the reverse to Hines Ward that went for about 15 yards and did get something started.

The people complaining about the bad call on Hasselbeck's "block"/tackle (which in truth was a bad call) seem to forget that the reverse pass TD came shortly after that and it would have scored a TD from wherever they ran it. Those penalty yards were almost meaningless.

Antwaan Randle El made a hell of a play when he chased down Herndon after the interception near the endzone. He may have scored had Antwaan not chased him down. Much like the Champ Bailey pick in the Broncos/Patriots game - i cannot believe the blockers in these situations don't look around for people to hit. Randle El went around 2 people to get to Herndon and if either of them had turned and looked, they would have seen him and picked him off. Lucky for us I guess.

Hines Ward's non TD catch was CLEARLY more catchable than I had originally thought. They didn't show enough replays of this, but he really should have caught that ball. Thats another thing you can add to the long list of things Seattle fans don't want to remember. It could have very easily been 14-3 at the half.

Willie Parker may have a Shawn Alexander type season next year. Think about it, he got 1,200 yards and they were pretty quiet. Imagine him getting 20-25 touches per game. 2 Seattle defenders could have stopped that play but they both underestimated his speed. One was slow to the HUGE hole created by Alan Faneca and the other (Pruitt I think) took a poor angle once he was through the hole. Much like the Colts, the Steelers may force defenses to play mostly base sets next year if they can't guess what's coming at them.

Super Finish Shouldn't Be Questioned

"Heard too many Seattle people grousing about the officials after the game. There were a couple of marginal calls -- the Darrell Jackson end-zone pushoff, which negated a touchdown, most notably --but Seattle did quite enough to lose the game." That was from Peter King's Monday Morning QB column onNFL.com. He is Sports Illustrated's lead NFL writer and does stuff for HBO also. In the industry, one of the biggest names and most respected people in footall media......and NOT a Steelers fan.

This is my take: I waited until I had about 6 emails from chuckleheads telling me the Steelers didn't deserve to win before I decided to fire back. Let's look again.....

When big plays HAD to be made, the Steelers made them.They had KEY 3rd down conversions. Seattle was 5 of 17. The had 3 very timely sacks when they needed them. Gardocki consistently dropped theball inside the 20 on punts. Seattle's punter did not. The Steelers nor the officials had anything to do with Seattle's inability to manage the clock at the end of the game and at the end of the first half. The Steelers nor the officials had anything to do with Seattle missing 2 FGs. Now, had Seattle done all of those things, maybe they could have won...but I still say they would not have punched the ball in the endzone. They had multiple chances to do it and couldn't. The Steelers adjusted their rushing attack at halftime and scored on the 2nd play out of the tunnel. Jeremy Stevens couldnt catch a cold in the middle of the winter. He was clearly intimidated by the hit Chris Hope put on him early in the game. In essence, the Steelers gave Seattle (the league's most potent offense) the ball twice and they still only scored 10 points. The calls? The officiating? The Big Ben TD was in. No doubt in my mind. From where the ball was in his arms, it had to cross the line. Every announcer/talking head agreed with this call....except some idiotic fans who watch 2 games a year who think it's where the ball ends up - not that the forward progress of the ball only has to break the very first speck of white paint outline to be a TD. The D-Jack catch out of bounds when his foot hit the pylon......this was explained on Sirius satellite's NFL show today to those who again do not know the rules of the game. He has to have control and have 2 feet in BEFORE the pylon becomes part of the field to him as a ball carrier. Next!

The D-Jack offensive pass interference call. This WAS ticky-tacky and didn't seem to influence the play that much...but he DID EXTEND his elbow right in front of the ref. Easy call? No. Could have went either way probably....but he DID push off even if ever-so-slightly and in slow motion it's one thing, but if you look again in realtime...you can actually see/feel the advantage gained by him propelling himself in the opposite direction. He did it...he didnt have to. If he doesn't touch him, it's still probably a TD...so I wouldn't complain about the refs, I'd complain about D-Jack himself.

Of the 2 holding calls, the ref does not know if the pass will be incomplete, a long gain or a td when he throws the flag. How on earth does the ref know a catch is going to be made at the one when he throws the flag? On the first one as Madden pointed out, the arm was hooked - holding. On the second one, I admit, I saw no holding on the guy they called it on. Doesn't mean the ref didn't see holding somewhere else. The low block on Hasselbeck? Cheap call I thought, although it is the letter of the law. Just like the tuck rule during the infamous Pats/Raiders game - it's a rule so it has to be called until the rule is changed.

What about the Jeremy Stevens "catch" when he took 3 steps and got popped and they didnt call it a catch? The people who are crying "bad calls" only to seem to be against Pittsburgh who had bad calls against them all year...BUT THEY STILL FOUND A WAY TO WIN. What about Wards' 2 drops. What about Ike Taylor's dropped pick? The Steelers had a multitude of chances also that they blew. It wasn't just Seattle. This was NOT a crisp game by either team to say the least. For Pittsburgh to have 2 picks against them, dropped passes, no offensive synch at all facing the league's MVP and best offense and to still win 21-10 proves to me that they are resilient and can still win when faced with adversity. If your QB who is averaging a passer rating of 130 in the playoffs puts up a 9-21 performance with a 23 rating and you STILL win, you did something right. As bad as a statistical game as he had....he made HUGE plays to get them there and he made HUGE plays in that game when he had to. To not cross the line and find Ward was HUGE. To run for the TD was huge. To run for a clock killing 1st down near the end of the game was huge. The block on the reverse pass was HUGE. He is a 2nd year player who will only get better. Can't believe some of the negative things some people said about him today. He had a below average game and his team still won. How many teams can survive that?

Would have been interesting if Stevens caught all those balls and they didn't have so many penalties called against them. Does that guarantee a win? NO! The game would have been different and would have been played out differently - but who knows what the result would have been? The Steelers were resilient down the stretch and all through the playoffs. To assume they would have lost if Seattle would have just (fill in the blank) is (fill in an expletive) in my estimation. You can "if" your way to the Super Bowl - but you can't win it with "if's".

Important things to wonder: Why didn't Seattle sense the gadget play after the Colts game? I told my cousin a month ago after the Colts game that the Steelers would line up the same way in a future game and instead of Randle El passing it back to Ben he would throw it because they haven't done that yet this year in that exact order. BANG! I called it. Other Steeler fans called it. Why on God's green earth didn't Holmgren know it was coming? Bettis told Parker on the sideline to stop going for the edge and to cut one up when he saw the hole. BANG! TD! Why didn't Seattle assume he would adjust? On 3rd and long in desperate situations, this supposedly AWESOME Seattle line couldn't stop Hasselbeck from getting sacked. With 6:50 remaining and knowing the Steelers are going to try to run out the clock, why couldn't they prevent the first downs?

I'm not quite sure again why some people thought they didn't do enough to win. The calls? I don't think so. Give them the D-Jack TD and they still need another one. Steeler fans could just as easily say "had Ben put ANY air under that pass near the goaline (or simply threw it away) and the score is at worst 17-3 and maybe 21-3 instead of 14-10. The game is what it is - a Super Bowl Victory for clearly the best team in the NFL right now.

Final thought: If you watched the Colts/Steelers game, you saw after the horrible call on Troy Polamalu's pick that he simply put his helmet on and ran back onto the field to line up for the next play. No complaining. He went right back to work. I think the Seachickens players couldn't do that after they thought they had been wronged. It's all about focus.