I had meant to put this up Monday night. I think I went to bed at 8:30 that night and didn’t remember the rest of the week. Here are my thoughts from Monday morning about the Super Bowl as well as Matt’s response. You may see these again, on Matt and my sports writer resumes.
My Recap
Not overjoyed this morning due to the Super Bowl and other things. Really I didn’t care all that much but it could have been a much better game. I did wind up rooting for the Seahawks, not heavily but if I don’t have any feelings at least slightly in one direction there is no point in watching. I even picked a team when Miami and Ohio State played for the National Championship (it took until overtime but I fell into Miami’s corner). Sometimes you just can’t choose, I don’t think I even watched the 2000 World Series because Yankees-Mets is lose-lose. Enough babble, lets review what happened last night.
I’ve got three things that the Seahawks screwed up that I think cost them the game. These are outside of refs because, well actually, lets talk about them first.
0) The Refs: Two worst calls of the game: the first Steelers TD and the Hasselback block below the waist?? Plus, how does a team go through an entire game and get no holding calls when the other has about 4. The only calls I can recall against the Steelers were two false starts and an offensive pass interference, is that right? Now I’ll admit I didn’t play close attention to the line play, and I’m really not sure why that is. Likely because I wasn’t all that invested in the game, I certainly was no on the edge of my seat.
1) The Seahawks Gave Up After Every Penalty: Now it was a little odd that everytime they were driving and getting close to scoring there was a penalty. Then they just froze up and couldn’t move the ball. It was as if they had resigned themselves to the fact that they couldn’t move the ball 20 yards on the Steelers. Yet when it was 1st & 10 moving 20 yards in 3 plays was no problem at all. This then led to two 50+ yard field goals. I can’t blame Brown for missing those, after he pushed the first on he tried to keep the second one in line and hooked it. Understandable. This game should have been 17-3 at the half easy. They then would have been able to stay loose in the second half and won eaily.
2) Jeremy Stevens can’t back up his mouth: 3 Drops?!?!? In key situations. Hasselbeck threw some perfect balls to him and he just didn’t hang on. He wasn’t even about to get killed on any of those.
3) Worst Punting Ever: Maybe the game plan was to keep the ball out of Randle-El’s hands. However from what I saw the Seahawks special teams was solid and he wasn’t going to be breaking anything. Four touchbacks on six kicks is unacceptable. Cost them a bunch of field position.
Could Al Michaels have screwed up a few more times? They need to get him away from Madden and find out if he still has anything left. And Madden, oh my. Has anyone who sounds like they may stop breathing from saying bootleg ever said the word 16 times in 8 seconds and survived? The coverage itself was terrible too. They never showed replays of stuff I wanted another look at. The plays they would focus on and Madden would start drawing were so simple, oh really, I couldn’t tell they used the receiver as a screen to open up the tight end. But I never like football coverage. The only way I’ll ever be able to accept it is if they let me assemble a team to cover a game. If I find I screw up too many times doing play-by-play and don’t show the right replays then I’ll shut up.
As for the commercials. Yuck. My favorite, as you probably guessed, was for Chopper 6 HD. I have to get one of those. Really I have to go with Emerald Nuts. I also liked the one with the crowd holding up the cardboard showing the beer being poured, MacGyver, when he kicked the dinosaur and then got stomped (was that FedEx?), secret fridge, and of course V for Vendetta.
Matt’s Responce
I was not overjoyed today by the game either janke. I have to say that was one of the worst officiated games all year. I was pretty much an unbiased watcher (what am I talking about? I hate the Steelers), and I really felt the refs screwed the Seahawks. I agree with the two bad calls you mentioned, but there were so many more. In fact, I agree with all your points janke, well done. Yeah, Stevens, what happened to ya? Yeah, Rouen, felt like punting to the endzone EVERY time. They did seem to just shut down after those penalties. They were moving the ball up and down the field on the Steelers. I don’t know what happened there.
Two other points I would like to add…I felt the Seahawks didn’t run Alexander enough. He had 20 carries, 95 yards, yeah, but come on, he was the League MVP, he needed to be given the ball more. Hasselbeck played a hell of a game, and the interception was a bad read and route by Engram, and he also had all those drops from Stevens, and bad sideline awareness from his WR’s, but the clock management at the end of the 1st half was a killer. I had no idea what was going on there when they wasted at least 20 seconds after that Alexander run.
Anyways, I guess I am happy for the Steelers in a way, for Cowher, Bettis, Roethlisberger, in particular, and for beating the best of the best all the way to the title. They deserved that much. Also, I have determined that I must be the curse for those PA football teams. They couldn’t win any big games when I still lived there…I am out of there for 5 days and this is what happens??? Conversely, I have put the hex on Seattle, so I know it has got to be me. The fans around here are strangely happy for their team (personally, I am devastated when my team loses, especially a game like this). Of course, they got their, “at least we got here” slogan going. They say they will be back next year…yeah, we will see.
Finally, its a good thing Madden made it to the Hall of Fame as a coach, cause he would never make it as an announcer (if there were a Hall of Fame for this profession). There were some good commercials…I did enjoy most of the beer commercials (i am glad the clydesdales were back, with a streaker this time…haha), and I LOVED the use of cardboard in the stands to create the beer pouring in the glass and then drinking effect. FANTASTIC! Alright, for those of you who don’t know, today is my first full day at work, so maybe I should do something, haha. Hi to everyone! Congrats Dave and Caitlin on your steelers. Can’t wait for curling! Later.
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