MoLewisrocks

ballwashing the Steelers (Felger lamenting they've ruined his Steeler bashing, Borges gently chastising their just good enough gutsy performance and Cafardo ballwashing his dynasty in the making (Buffalo, Denver, Indy, anyone but them... replacement), it's aparently left to the idiot baseball columnist everyone loves to hate (Shaughnessy) to be the only Boston sports mediot to address the real story of SBXL in print:

"Enough is enough. The NFL's horrid postseason officiating culminated with a brutal four quarters at the Super Bowl. Seattle fans will be crowing about this for decades. Think of how you still feel about Ed Armbrister and Larry Barnett, then multiply. This is going to be the issue when folks look back at Super Bowl XL, and it could dominate discussion for the entire offseason. No league is better run than the NFL, but its part-time officials had an abysmal postseason and took the Seahawks right out of their first Super Bowl. The call on the Ben Roethlisberger touchdown dive was bad. The call on the Darrell Jackson offensive pass interference was bad, and the holding call on Sean Locklear was bad. Oh, the phantom personal foul against Matt Hasselbeck wasn't very good, either. All of the calls went against Seattle. And they cost the Seahawks dearly. New England fans who are still mad about the bogus pass interference call on Asante Samuel in Denver should send condolences to their friends in the Pacific Northwest."

If you don't follow football in general that closely, or listen to sports radio, or read out of town papers, you'd be hard pressed in Boston to know there was anything out of the ordinary in this year's Superbowl aside from a lacklustre first half, some spotty officiating and invariably one for Jerome and the Steelers thumb.

And while Borges and Carafdo are entitled to their opinions regardless of how warped they may be, and Felger is well within his rights to direct his comments towards a potentially wider demographic who may get better reception on their Pittsburgh ESPN affiliate or listen in on the internet, just remember this in context. If the current Patriots team won one for the pinky - threepeating even - in this fashion, including their 6th round QB coughing up a 22.6 hairball in the biggest game of the year, and having their own striped 12th man basically calling their defense, we would be subjected to a championship degradation commentary the likes of which Pittsburgh will/would never endure from the Steel City mediots. Belichick would be an overhyped fraud whose teams abyssmal performance was only salvaged by shoddy officiating, and whose QB (even playing through a sports hernia) might need to have a hold placed on that HOF bust.

You know I'm right. These clowns hold this team to impossible standards while continually overstating the performance or accomplishments of any team that simply isn't them. Even if it means dismissing/ignoring the wisespread contention that this was worst officiating performance of the most horrendously officiated post season in NFL history.

The only solace is at least the baseball columnist who grew so bitter covering a team in the throws of an 86 year championship drought he invented a curse, appreciates a team in another sport who has made this town as his buddy Ryan states a two faced sports town:

"We need to get over it. We need to stop doing this to ourselves. But it was impossible to watch those teams stumble around for four quarters and not come away convinced that the Patriots would have won their fourth Super Bowl in five years if they'd just found a way to hold on to the football in Denver that night."


http://www.boston.com/sports/footbal...ating_flagged/

Bella*chick

Oh, Mo. You are so, so right. And the last part of your post is what is still the most painful.

Thank goodness I'm not reading the Boston papers. I was fairly pleased with the articles addressing the bad officiating yesterday on ESPN.com, even if it meant I agreed with the guys from Cold Pizza. I have yet to speak to one person who wasn't monumentally disappointed in the SB. I just can't stand that people aren't acknowledging it, or worse, blithely raving about the Steelers phantom dominance as if it were the 70s all over again.

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Garbanza

I live in the Boston area, and on-air shows have repeatedly stated that the officiating was awful and that it favored the Steelers. All beleive the Steelers would have still won - as do I (too many dropped passes, 'hawks) - but to say that everyone in Boston has brushed aside this issue is wrong.

Do yourselves a favor, stop reading Carfado and Borges.....it will do a mind good.

Bella*chick

And the world slowly rights itself. Phew! This is good to hear.

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Hoodie

I actually won some cash so the SB wasn't as disappointing as it could have been.

People say they are tried of seeing the Pats in the SB but the Pats games have all been exciting. I'll rank them:

1. SB 36

2. SB 38

3. SB 39

As for the officiating, they really need to do something about it. They fix may not have been in but it sure looked like it was and the NFL needs to be careful about managing perception because perception becomes reality.

MoLewisrocks

Do us both a favor and actually read my posts before telling me to do myself a favor.

Re-read the thread title - I said the Boston football writers are ignoring the biggest story in SBXL. That anyone who doesn't follow sports closely or listen to sports radio or read out of town papers would have no idea what transpired in Detroit Sunday evening. And believe it or not, most people don't listen to sports media like most of us do, while many do still read a paper whether delivered, purchased or read on line.