RIVETING stuff, given that it had two of the toughest-ever acts to follow – last year’s Super Bowl and last night’s National Anthem sung by Jennifer Hudson (what comes after awesome?).
Thoughts/observations/two cents:
It’s beyond belief how personal fouls – bad behavior – now determine the outcomes of the biggest games.
Five minutes left, fourth quarter, 20-14, Steelers, and DB Ike Taylor gives the Cards an extra 15 yards for a beyond stupid tough-guy hit on Anquan Boldin after both were out of bounds. And neither Al Michaels nor John Madden offer a word of condemnation. Ho hum.
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And with 49 seconds left and the Cards up, 23-20, Ben Roethlisberger was running downfield, giving the spike-the-ball/stop-the-clock signal. Meanwhile, WR Santonio Holmes, after a 40-yard catch and run to the six, was too busy taking an it’s-all-about-me walk into the end zone to see Roethlisberger.
Roethlisberger couldn’t spike the ball with Holmes on the Cards’ side of the line of scrimmage. So Pittsburgh called its last timeout. And, again, not a word from Michaels or Madden about a player’s colossally selfish behavior.
Figures that NBC added Pats’ DB Rodney Harrison to its pregame show. He’s among the all-time leaders in personal fouls, fines and suspensions.
But Michaels will repeat any stat, no questions asked. He twice told us that the Cards had, wow, three WRs with 1,000-plus yards, Larry Fitzgerald, Boldin and the lesser-known Steve Breaston. But that in large part was because Boldin missed four games. And Michaels remained eager to present wildly misleading QB ratings as real-deal football insight.
NBC’s best in-game idea was to show Karols Dansby’s third quarter hit on Roethlisberger – it drew a flag – first in slo-mo then in real time. Only in slo-mo did the hit appear flag-worthy.
Pittsburgh’s first quarter touchdown was disallowed after inconclusive evidence twice – once immediately, once via the replay rule – was deemed conclusive. How does the NFL expect side judges to simultaneously see two things – whether the ball crosses the goal line and whether the ball carrier’s knee first touches the ground?
And yesterday’s officiating crew was exactly what the NFL’s “still evolving” replay rule has turned all its crews – indecisive.
Late in the third, to prove Madden’s point that Kurt Warner now plays in gloves but once didn’t, NBC showed a picture of Warner playing for the Rams without gloves. Hey, we had taken his word for it.