wijg said:
Congrats Mav, I know you at least are a huge fan. Your boys pulled it out. Not a great game, but all that matters is the win.
Thanks Wijg. And let me start out by saying, LIFE IS GREAT!
Now onto business. First off, the refs/NFL did not fix the game. Please don't complain about games being fixed. Seahawks fans know nothing about Super Bowls being fixed. At least not like Steelers fans. Neil O' Donnell threw 2 passes to Larry Brown in SB XXX. Who is Larry Brown you ask, he's not the Knicks coach and he wasn't a Steeler in Super Bowl 30, he was a DB for Dallas. O' Donnell inexplicably threw 2 interceptions to Brown who for all intents and purposes was all alone. HE THREW THE BALL RIGHT TO A COWBOY DEFENSIVE BACK, TWICE! There is no way he did that on accident. Now that's a fixed game.
Granted the refs didn't come into question in that game. So if Seahawks fans want to cry foul, then Steelers fans can cry foul about the Pit/Indy game. Everyone knows about the Troy Polamalu interception that was overturned, but what people forget is that Antwaan Randel El was blatantly interferred with on a long pass from Roethlisberger and the refs didn't call it. Those two "non calls" were far worse than anything Seattle fans can complain about from yesterday. And the Steelers accepted the wrong calls and still made enough plays to hold on and beat the Colts. Yes the refs affected the game, but they did not determine it.
Stephens's dropped passes lost it for the Seahawks. Their less than 30% 3rd down conversion rate lost it for the Seahawks. Poor clock management and play calling at the end of both halves lost it for the Seahawks. Darrel Jackson not being able to get both feet down for the catch at the 1 yard line lost it for them. The fact that Seattle kept punting out of the end zone instead of trying to pin the Steelers back helped them lose the game. The Seattle defense bitting so hard on the double reverse they had bloody lips, lost it for the Seahawks.
As far as the refs go, most of the calls were correct. The offensive pass interference was a push off. You can clearly see that on any replay. Seattle fans can say that kind of push off is hardly called by the refs, but don't say the wide recevier didn't push off. The holding call on the right tacle was holding. The tackle was behind Haggans (I think it was Haggans) and he still held up Haggans. The only way to slow down a linebacker after he's gotten past you is to hold. There is no other way the tacle could've slowed down Haggans after he got past him. Accept it. The only bad call was the Hasslebeck low block (or maybe it wasclipping). I didn't like that call at all, he was clearly trying to make the tackle on Ike Taylor after the interception.
But don't think the calls were one sided. There was a catch by Stephens that was ruled an incomplete pass intsead of a fumble, and it really looked like a catch and fumble to me. And if the refs let it be a fumble like it should've been, only the Steelers were around the ball and it would've been a turnover.
I could go on and on about yesterday, but I'll stop here. The game was not fixed. The refs didn't hand the Steelers the game. The edge of the side of the ball did cross the goal line on the Roethlisberger touchdown. It came down to which team took advantage of their opportunities and clearly the Steelers did and the Seahawks didn't. Even if you still think they were bad calls you have to concede that the Seahawks didn't overcome adversity like the Steelers didn't in the Colts game. The Steelers deserved to win. And no, I am not bias. i'm not the kind of person to lie about silly things like football.
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And about the commercials, they were awful for the most part. They've been getting worse and worse for the last few years now.