Reality check

This is the blog I suspect my partner in crime would like to write, but would never actually write because he has too much class. This is the blog that I’m sure every Seahawks fan wants to write but won’t lest they be accused of sour grapes. I’m a Packers fan and had only a mild rooting interest in this game. From a relatively unbiased perspective I have no reservation saying Seattle was blatantly and obviously robbed.

This wasn’t just one bad call, this was a consistent and deliberate agenda, a fraud perpetrated against the Seahawks by the officials. Every time Pittsburgh needed a call they got it. Every time Seattle began to move the ball, a call went against them. It was obvious and shameful.

1: Roethlisberger’s TD that wasn’t. We Tivo’d the play and watched it in stop action. Even the Steelers fan watching the game with us agreed he didn’t get in. We saw it on the Tivo and apparently Seattle’s booth people saw it too. However the officials did not. What made the officiating even more egregious was that the ref had originally ruled him down. Watch the play. The line judge runs out pointing at the spot and changes it at the last second.

2: The phantom interference call. I forget who the receiver was for Seattle, but the play was a touch down. Seattle would have been up 7 – 0 but the pass interference call negates the play. If I’m not mistaken the rule says the offensive player can not push off to catch the ball. Watch the play carefully. At best it was incidental contact, and the flail of the receivers arm did not constitute a push.

3: The phantom hold. Seattle completes a seam pass to their Tight End on the 5 yard line in the fourth quarter. The play gets called back for holding. A camera catches the entire play of the player involved in the hold, except there is none. John Madden remarks “There may have been a hold but I didn’t see it”

4: The illegal blocking call on Hasslebeck. Uhh.... HE FUCKING MADE THE TACKLE!!!! Let's just give the Steelers another 10 yards, or was it 15? Where was the outrage from the booth? All John Madden could say was "This is a case of the referess seeing something that wasn't there". No shit.

There were other examples, much I have already put out of my head.

This was consistent throughout the game, and its games like this that make me lose faith in the NFL and in the integrity of sports. When you think about it, it’s better for the league for Pittsburgh to win, after all they have a national fan base. It’s a better story line, a story line that makes everybody more money, and if you don’t think the world works that way then we’re living in a different world.

I always want to believe that professional sports transcends the corruption and bullshit of the real world. Then I watch a game like this and remember that sports is as much a part of the real world as Enron, political lobbyists, the church that extorted money from my family when I was growing up, and the garbage carting and cement industry in New York.

Thanks for the reality check.