One page source on Wild Cards

...although, as Bruce noted, the Chiefs are not listed as a Wild Card team.

I wake up this morning happy for the Steelers but disappointed in the game. Just one call (the holding call that took away the completion down to the Steelers' 1), had it not happened, might have changed the outcome of the game. It at least would have set up the game for a better finish than the deja vu of last year, watching Seattle let the clock slip away from them.

I think that the "incontrovertible evidence" standard needs to be revisited on scoring plays. I think that it is a sensible standard for things like ruling a catch legal in the middle off the field, but the standard for touchdowns shouldn't be a standard of proof relative to the call on the field, but a standard of proof relative to the basic football call. Is there clear evidence that the football has broken the plane of the goal? Yes, and it's a TD; no, and it's not. I don't care what the initial call on the field was. It should be irrelevant on plays of this kind.

And you can't tell me that the official (the linesman) that raised his arms wasn't doing the "run to the spot" to mark the ball in the field of play. Did the head ref call out the secret code reminding him that they were supposed to give every close call to the Steelers? Every now and then, in particularly cynical moments, I get to thinking that the NFL influences outcomes. Yesterday's game was one of those that makes me think that this is less a matter of paranoia than of reality.

On the topic of rating the Super Bowl: maybe my memory of other SBs is such that I can't remember the officials having such a direct impact on the outcome, but that angle makes it hard to rank this one. It was competitive into the 4th Q, the INT changed the game from a 21-3 (I had a flashback to Roynell Young standing flatfooted as Cliff Branch jumped over him to catch the ball in the end zone) affair to 14-3 with the Seahawks in scoring position. After scoring, this could have been a bracing game to the finish. The Steelers score on the gadget play is all to their credit. But just the same, the Seahawks came back to get themselves into a position to get close again. And then zebra flu struck... leaving this one hard to rate, but certainly no higher than the lower end of the second tier, probably somewhere in the third tier, and definitely above the bottom quartile.

A few other notes: is it just me, or does anyone else simply not tune into the "entertainment" efforts that preceded the SB and ran at the half? I have zero interest - this is the sop to the half of the crowd watching that aren't football fans. Good for them, I guess, but I couldn't care less. I didn't know about Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction until after the game, for example. I have no great affinity for The Rolling Stones, so I didn't care about their performance last night either. Besides, had there been a malfunction, what would we have seen? A pacemaker scar?

PS: Here is the image from the home page of Lake Catholic that ran yesterday