I know its late...

Please, there was no "conspiracy" and if you think there was then do us a favor and stop watching football.

Because if this game was rigged, that means that probably all the Super Bowls were rigged right? I mean, why would they just pick this one to rig out of all the other games and other Super Bowls? And that makes the NFL as legit as wrestling, so therefore, why watch at all Seahawk guy?

Conspiracy, what a joke.

Here it is, cut and dry:


Most of the calls were correct by the book. Locklear held Haggans all game long and never got called, so he finally gets called and everyone cries bloody murder. The tape does show Locklear with his arm around Haggans neck at one point and a little jersey stretching, so it's not totally outlandish to think that a ref would call holding on that. I've seen much crappier holding calls during less-watched games.

It should be worth noting that the referee threw the flag on that play WELL before the ball was caught at the 1-yard line. So it's not like the ref saw Stevens (who was AWFULL and dropped balls the whole game by the way) catch the ball THEN threw the flag to negate the play.

It's also worth noting that on the offensive pass interference play, the referree reaches for his flag right when Jackson pushes off, it slips, Jackson catches the pass in the end zone, and then the ref is able to get the flag out of his pocket. So it's not like the ref saw him catch it and THEN threw the flag like I've heard a couple people complain. It's also worth mentioning that the Steelers had this same call go against them (on TE Heath Miller) a few drives later when they were close to the red zone. However, they were able to convert a 3rd and 28 to erase the effects of the penalty.

Finally, there are several pictures of Big Ben appearing to barely cross the goal line while he was in mid-air all over the internet. Remember (and I'm not sure if the Seattle fans realize this or not), it doesn't matter where he landed, it's whether or not the very tip of the nose of the ball crossed even the smallest portion of the white line at any point before the player was down. Ben took flight, and got knocked back while in midair AFTER the tip of the ball apparently nudged the goal line. That's a TD.

I've watched this game on DVR at least 3 times now, which seems to be a lot more than most of the complainers have done. The only bad call I saw was the one on Hasselbeck during the interception return... however, Big Ben gets blasted in the back during an int return right in front of the refs on an return of his 3rd quarter int. and nothing is called. They're refs, they're far from perfect man, oh well.

The thing was blown out of proportion by some columnists and sports radio show hosts because that's what they do, try to create and feed controversy to improve their ratings. And let's face it, it wasn't the best played Super Bowl in recent years so they needed SOME sort of story to come out of it so they played up the complaints by groups of Seattle fan/Steeler hating bloggers and web forum visitors.

So guys, just man up and take the loss. If you see a Steeler fan congratulate him on the great season and he or she should do the same to you.

Also, someone called both teams dismal. I think that person obviously only watched the Super Bowl and not much regular season football.

These were the two best teams in the NFL that just happened to both play crappy games in Super Bowl. Seattle was dominant in the NFC and rattled off a huge winning streak, and Pittsburgh's mid-season slide could be attributed partly to injuries, because once they got healthy in December they literally plowed through the AFC playoff field in unprecedented fashion.

The story was there: one of the most storied NFL franchises with a huge and hungry fanbase Steelers vs. the upstart Seahawks looking for their first long-awaited taste of glory. It's just that ESPN didn't like it because there was no Brady or Manning involved and tried to make it look boring (btw when is ESPN going to realize that the Pittsburgh Steelers quite possibly have more fans than any NFL, and most other sports, franchises.)

It was a great and intriguing matchup, between two awesome teams that just happened to both unfortunately bring their C-games that day.