Seen as how most of threads are pretty full lets address a couple of things:

No one ever said the officiating was great however championship teams find a way to win ie. pittsburgh vs indianapolis

a) Djack TD- According to the NFL rules if a player uses his arms to create seperation then it is offensive pass interference. Did D jack push off -- yes (not that hard but he did). And seen as how you tivo'd the game watch the official he is trying to throw the flag (before the defender turned around) but he couldnt find it. This is similar to the hasselback fumble. The rules state that when an offensive player is down by contact then the ground can not cause a fumble. As you saw the pittsburgh defender cleraly touched his hip (and that didnot cause him too fall) therefore no fumble. Pittsburgh didnt cry about this. They simply went a head and kept on playing.

b) The officials definitely moved the goal post during their kickers field goal attempt. Had to because the fix was on.

c)The pylon controversy-- in order for the pylon to come into play the player must have already established in bounds possession. You cant hit the pylon and say that was my second foot in bounds.

d) How bout when Big Ben threw the interception and a defender blocked someone in the back during the return?? Dont hear you saying anything about that. Again watch it if you must.

e) Seattle plain and simple sucks. If they cant beat a team that had a poor a day as Pittsburgh did then they are horrible. Any other AFC playoff team would have beat Pittsburgh yesterday-no doubt in my mind ... no matter what calls went against them...again championship teams find a way to win. Pittsburgh was the better of two teams that played horrible yesterday.

*** STAFF EDIT ***

I) And finally

PITTSBURGH STEELERS WORLD CHAMPIONS!!!

scotto, it isn't like Pot Bully is the only one saying this.

If you turned on the TV yesterday you would have noticed that everyone was saying the Seahawks got screwed. If you opened the papers yesterday you would have noticed everyone saying the Seahawks got screwed.

I bet if Vanderjagt makes the field goal and the Colts win in OT a few weeks ago you would be bitching about the Steelers getting screwed by the refs and the game being fixed.

Yes, the Seahawks could have played better. That doesn't change the fact that on all but one big play the call went against the Hawks. Doesn't change the fact that a fix can happen and if you think it can't then you are wearing blinders.

Once again, I NEVER EVER said the officiating was even average, all I have been saying is that championship quality teams overcome them. Pot Bully has YET to answer my statements on the offensive interference, instead he has to post a picture of himself on pocketfives.com(which to me says he has finally read the rules on offensive pass interference and knows he is wrong)

As far as fixes go, it would be EXTREMELY hard to fix a professional game without the cooperations of the players...and the one example are the White Sox.....do you think the umpires could have fixed that??? You need help from someone playing on the team.

And one other thing trues... sports talk shows and papers LIVE for controversy... thats how they make money

You know what pot bully stats are what they are. The sample of 122K is hardly enough to constitute a valid study when over 90 million viewed the game. And again, how many people know the rules of offensive pass interference?? And once again I guess you are not able to refute any of my points above because you are to IGNORANT to realize you may be wrong. Instead, you post a picture of yourself and use profanity to make up for your lack of knowledge.
And once more thing.... Did you see the officials move those field goal posts during the field goal attempts, how there were only 45 seconds in each minute of the game clock, how Mike holmgren actually used better clock management, or how Ike Taylor really didnt intercept the Matt Hasselback throw on a go ahead drive??? No you only see what you want to. AGAIN THE OFFICIALS SUCKED ON SUNDAY ... NO DOUBT ABOUT IT......BUT IF SEATTLE WOULD HAVE PLAYED BETTER THEY MAY HAVE WON.....

GG Steelers!!!

Trues or Pot,

I haven't seen anyone deny that a sporting event has or can be fixed. I think the whole world knows the officiating sucked, but that doesn't on it's own constitute the fix was on. I've asked this question a few times, but never really received a point blank answer.......

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, 100% without question, are you guys saying the game WAS fixed or just that the possibility exists?

Of course games have been thrown before, but what I want to know is are you saying the Super Bowl was DEFINITELY RIGGED?

Everyone bitching about poorly officiated games is to be expected, but THAT SPEAKS MORE ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE OFFICIALS IN THE NFL THAN IT SUGGESTS THE GAME WAS RIGGED.

Potbully I read the sports poll you posted and I think it also is pretty much saying the officiating in the NFL def. needs to be addressed. I'd also like to see a similar poll that was conducted before all the hoopla of this game obviously swayed peoples answers. Again, this is not to say that the system is fine.

Bottom line is I'm not sure exactly what all parties involved are arguing over anymore. The possibility that games can be thrown or that this one was?

The sample of 122K is hardly enough to constitute a valid study when over 90 million viewed the game.

i would consider this an accurate assessment considering the people willing to access espn's sportnation polls are more avid fans than the normal superbowl viewer. The people who vote in these polls are the guys that follow the sports developments pretty closely. seahawks were cheated during some very crucial plays in the game, but it shouldnt taint the steelers accomplisment, although i believe it will in the end. sad...both teams were deserving, shame they couldnt have had a fair game

Do a google search, bad call Super Bowl. The story isn't the Steelers winning, the story across the nation is the bad officiating. The Seahawks had more yards, less turnovers, more time of possession and Big Ben had a 22 QB rating for the game. The Seahawks still had a chance to win, but the only way the Steelers win, is bad officiating, pure and simple. I'm all for "one for the thumb", but this game was a disgrace to the NFL and the Nation. If anyone thinks it would take buying off a bunch of officials, to fix a game, well I'll tell ya what, give me the two back line judges and I can give you the winner of every game.

The players in the NFL will not fix a playoff game and lose on purpose. They may shave points or lose a game on purpose when they are out of contention to secure a better draft pick. I know for a fact that this has happened because I know of a few former and current players that have told me it has. I will give you one fix that I know of for sure. Eagles fans the reason your team got the #2 pick in 99 and got McNabb is because the Eagles tanked that game purposely. If you had won that game you would have picked 6 or something and do not get McNabb. I know a player who was on that team who told me that, the player is also a former TB Buc O-lineman so figure out who it is from that. I bet the Europeans never thought their soccer judges would fix a game, but that happend many times. For those of you who say the officiating was bad in the Indy/Ptt game, give me one example other than the overturned INT. There were no flags on Pitt when Ben was throwing downfield early.

Are you that much of a Homer or is my own speculaton justified, as to why you are so closed minded about this game?

'In the 201 games during the 2005 regular season where there was a difference in turnover margin, the team that won the turnover battle was 140-61."

Okay, out of those 61 losses, I would bet the Seahawks are the only team, that also had more yards, won time of possesion and the oppossing QB has a less than 25 QB rating. Poor Seattle, it only happens 1 in every 201 games, so the odds are 200-1, I guess next time this happens in a Super Bowl, it will be in the year 2206.

Well thank you ingasven for your generic article of the rundown of the game, I'll share reality with you, this is how most Of America feels.

<HR> Give The Super Bowl MVP To The Officials
By: Bob George/BosSports.net <HR> <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width=5 bgColor=#ffffff></TD><TD width=468 bgColor=#ffffff>DETROIT -- Looks like it wasn�t only the home crowd that was pro-Steelers at Ford Field.
Count the zebras amongst those who seemed to be among the Iron City faithful. All game long, it looked like they had an edict to �make sure Jerome Bettis goes out a winner and make sure Dan Rooney gets a Vince�. A hail of blatantly bad calls went against the Seattle Seahawks which cost them 14 precious points, and ultimately the game.
So, despite never getting untracked on offense, and despite not seemingly having a decent game plan, it is the Pittsburgh Steelers who come out of Super Bowl XL as world champions instead of the Seahawks, who for most of the game outplayed the Steelers. Three big plays and not much else was all the Steelers needed, other than those aforementioned officiating mistakes, which gave the Steelers a 21-10 victory and the franchise�s fifth Super Bowl win 26 years after their fourth.
Capping off a postseason littered with bad officials calls all over the place, it seemed only fitting that referee Bill Leavy and his crew apply the coup de grace in the biggest game of them all. Three bogus calls were what basically did the Seahawks in, though there were some junctures where Matt Hasselbeck and Mike Holmgren made some mistakes of their own which also helped the Steeler cause.
You hate to bag on the Steeler win, especially for Rooney. His father Art accepting the trophy for Super Bowl IX, the first Steeler championship after no titles for their first 41 years, is one of the most satisfying film clips in league history. The fifth Steeler Super Bowl win ties San Francisco and Dallas for most Vinces ever, and Rooney is generally hailed as one of the most distinguished owners in the league. Watching his team make NFL history by becoming the first six seed to win a Super Bowl had to be a highlight of his entire life.
But it would have gone over a lot better with the national football public if the Steelers had won this game without the help of Leavy and his crew. The Steelers were bitten by the bad officiating bug themselves in the win over Indianapolis (the interception by Troy Polamalu), but the Seahawks were chewed up and spit out. Pittsburgh thus becomes the least impressive Super Bowl champ since the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl V, winning a turnover-plagued slopfest over Dallas in 1971 where a linebacker on the losing team was game MVP (Chuck Howley).
The first critical call came in the first quarter. Seattle had the ball at their own 49, and drove to the Pittsburgh 17 in three plays. Hasselbeck dropped back on first down, and found Darrell Jackson in the end zone on a slant route. Jackson and free safety Chris Hope jostled for position, then Jackson got separation from Hope by placing his hand on Hope�s shoulder. Jackson caught the pass in the end zone for the touchdown, but back judge Bob Waggoner threw a flag and never signaled touchdown. He called Jackson for pushing off on Hope, and the Seahawks had to settle for a 47-yard Josh Brown field goal.
Replays showed that Jackson never pushed off. He did make contact with his hand on Hope�s shoulder, but never pushed off. The play resembled a similar call on Troy Brown on the last drive of Super Bowl XXXVIII against Carolina, where he was called for a pushoff which was more incidental contact than a push. The call was a definitive ticky-tack play, but it cost Seattle seven points and a chance to establish superiority in a game where they did not permit a Steeler first down for the first 19 minutes of the contest.
Three calls went against Seattle in the fourth quarter, the first two proving fatal. Trailing 14-10, Seattle was driving from its own two-yard line to the Pittsburgh 19. Seattle was continuing to find soft spots in the Steeler secondary, as Bobby Engram caught two passes for 37 yards along the way. On first down at the Steeler 19, Hasselbeck found Jerramy Stevens at the one, making a great catch in a crowd. But there was a flag thrown, and offensive holding was called on right tackle Sean Locklear.
Replays showed that Locklear was flagged for holding linebacker Clark Haggans, but no holding took place. Locklear had a perfectly legal block on Haggans, who was bearing in from the right side. Locklear never grabbed any part of Haggans, but holding was still called.
Three plays later, Hasselbeck made a bona fide mistake and threw a bad pass to Jackson in the left flat which Ike Taylor intercepted and returned to the Pittsburgh 29. A flag was thrown, and Hasselbeck was called for a low block. Again, replays showed that this was not the case, as Hasselbeck made the tackle on Taylor by hitting low, which is legal, rather than blocking someone. This moved the ball to the 44-yard line, and gave Pittsburgh much better field position. The Steelers cashed in on this four plays later, when Antwaan Randle El, a quarterback at Indiana, ran a reverse right and hit Hines Ward for a 43-yard touchdown which completed the scoring.
After surrendering the ball, Seattle needed to stop Pittsburgh three and out to get the ball back and try for two scores down eleven points. On third and six at his own 24, Ben Roethlisberger called a timeout a second after the play clock ran out (replays showed this also), but was given a timeout by Leavy instead of a penalty. Roethlisberger proceeded to hit Randle El for a first down and essentially salt the game away for the Steelers.
Here is why the Seahawks can complain and it isn�t sour grapes. Roethlisberger finished with 9 of 21 passing, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 22.6. Willie Parker had nine carries for 18 yards if you take away his 75-yard third quarter touchdown gallop which was the longest run from scrimmage in Super Bowl history. Ward had only five catches to lead the Steelers, but most of his 123 yards came on that Randle El reverse and it was good enough to get him game MVP honors. The Seahawks had a much better balanced attack, led by Shawn Alexander�s 95 yards rushing and 16 catches among Joe Jurevicius, Engram and Jackson.
Take away the officiating, and the Seahawks can hang their heads on their inability to finish drives, and three big plays on offense by the Steelers. Late in the second quarter, facing third down and 28 on the Seattle 40, Roethlisberger found a wide open Ward at the three, covered poorly by Michael Boulware. The inexcusable gaffe led to a one-yard touchdown run by Roethlisberger which made it 7-3 Pittsburgh. The long run by Parker and the Randle El touchdown pass were the other two big plays for the Steelers.
But it will be interesting to see what kind of a spin NFL officials director Mike Pereira puts on this game. He is to be commended for his willingness to come on the NFL Network and explain controversial calls every week, but he will have some explaining to do about the Jackson �pushoff� and the Locklear �hold�. He will in all likelihood say something like �Well, it�s a judgment call, and in my opinion the official made a good call�� or something like that. But both calls turned out to be huge, and they ultimately cost Seattle a world championship.
Of course, Seattle could have stopped those three big plays, also. But in this year of bad postseason officiating, these bad calls are magnified a thousand fold. Leavy, who did distinguish himself when he overruled (correctly) a Hasselbeck fumble, led a crew which did a poor job, plain and simple.
You can just hear Bill Cowher�s detractors. This is the only way he could win the big one. Get outcoached by a mile and still win thanks to the officials. Cowher has his Super win, but Holmgren did a better job (had he won, Holmgren would have been the first head coach to win Super Bowls with more than one team). Cowher can smile all he wants, but this was clearly a case of stealing a Super Bowl win.
Stealing a win. Is that why they�re called the �Steelers�?
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

For one thing, I never said the game was rigged. If I had two Officials that I had in my pocket, I could care less what teams won as long as I cash my bet. There was a pretty famous guy that once said " The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it", I'll say, the bigger the sports stage, the easier it would make it, to get away with anything. You ever see the movie "Fun with Dick and Jane", at the ending, that is how the NFL would ever treat a scandal, if they found out there was one in the Super Bowl. They'd help you carry the money to your car.

^^ "BUT SHITTY OFFICIATING A RIGGED GAME DOES NOT MAKE!!!!"

wowswift's been padding for years, and not just her posts

I'll lastly just agree with Holmgren and with <SPAN class=author minmax_bound="true">RICHARD JUSTICE of the</SPAN> Houston Chronicle

"We knew it was going to be tough playing against the Steelers," Seattle coach Mike Holmgren told the Associated Press on Monday. "But I didn't know we were going to have to take on the guys in the striped shirts, too."

"He won't get fined. The NFL doesn't have the guts to fine him"

Dude, The officials took points off the board three times for Seattle and killed any momentum they had gained. Thats all they have to do affect the game in their favor. Why was Pittsburgh not called for any holding calls when it was more obvious that they were holding and why was Illegal contact and PI not called on Pitts numerous times when it was obvious they were doing so. I'll give you one example of Offensive PI not called on Pitts. Ward Pushed off on the same type of move Jackson made on a third down play on the drive that led to the Herndon Pick. Ward knocked the defender on the ground. Accept it, your title is tainted. The whole world says so.

Man no offence to aany of you.....

but you're all fucking idiots for sayin oh "World Champions"

How the fuck can u be world champions of a tourney that only allowed teams from one country to enter!?!?!?????? man....find a real sport to idolise instead of that lame american football shit