2008 NFL Season - Discuss it all Here

[tim_m]

If they had tackled the thug wearing #92, the Cardinals would have come away with the W.

It's that simple.

Yep that about sums it up. Tackling him before he got to the endzone ends the half and leaves the steelers down by 3 at the end of the game.

[Layne Staley's Sunglasses]

If they had tackled the thug wearing #92, the Cardinals would have come away with the W.

It's that simple.

Yep that about sums it up. Tackling him before he got to the endzone ends the half and leaves the steelers down by 3 at the end of the game.

They missed a lot of tackles throughout the game.

They had two guys slip during the last Pittsburgh drive, the big gain that set up the TD throw.

And how three defenders couldn't wap the ball away from a man in the corner makes me wonder why they play defense in the NFL in the first place.

[sandman]

wow. this year's superbowl got the second most viewers ever.

[Mal Brossard]

The officiating was a total joke.  Much like the officiating in the Steelers' last victory in Super Bowl XL.  Remember Hasselbeck getting called for an illegal block in the back while making a tackle after an interception?

What a great fucking week this has been. Monday and Tuesday, there's a quarter-inch of ice on the roads and my and my wife's offices were still open, the only two in the city still open. Wednesday my grandmother was found dead by the police which is why I'm in Michigan right now. The memorial service is tomorrow. And to cap it all off, the Pissburgh Squealers and Ben Toothlessberger get handed another Super Bowl by shitty officiating for the second time in the past five years.

To quote Ziner from TheClevelandFan.com...

"I dont care who is sick of whining on this board. For the rest of the night I am going to pout and act like a bitch. Feel free to call me out on it because I dont give a shit. In a season where we thought we turned the corner our team fucking self destructed, then to top it off our most hated rival just lucked and coasted to a championship, with an Ohio QB, KSU LB and a OSU WR leading the way. This is bitter, real bitter. My wife is hanging her terrible towel in my living room and I want to kill her for it, but she can be a proud fan. The Browns are making me think supporting a pro franchise is just a stupid game that isnt worth my time. Why bother? What do we get? We get nothing and get treated like shit. I'm getting dangerously close to pretending to proclaim that I dont care, but I do, that is why I get so pissed. Win me a fucking superbowl next year. No rebuilding, no retooling, no nothing. Make the fucking thing happen. Beat Pittsburgh and Baltimore twice too on the way. I am sick of waiting. ManKok better figure this shit out, I dont want a winning record or playoffs, I want a fucking championship. Now."

[freedom78]

^Damn...sorry to hear about your grandmother.    





By the way...can anyone tell me what in the world is so terrible about a towel? 

[G2N2R]

OKay, seriously, thats enough whining about the officiating.

The Steelers were the better team, Ben looked like a great QB in that game, and the defense played fantastic.. don't try and take that away from them, they WERE the better team.

Was it the referee's that led the Steelers down to score on their first drive? Was it the referee's that shut down Fitzgerald for almost the whole game? Was it the referee's that shut down the run game of the Cards? No. Steelers won, deal with it, stop crying and complaining.

And BTW, that fumble at the end was clearly a fumble, he did not have control of that ball whatsoever after he was hit.

[faldor]

OKay, seriously, thats enough whining about the officiating.

The Steelers were the better team, Ben looked like a great QB in that game, and the defense played fantastic.. don't try and take that away from them, they WERE the better team.

Was it the referee's that led the Steelers down to score on their first drive? Was it the referee's that shut down Fitzgerald for almost the whole game? Was it the referee's that shut down the run game of the Cards? No. Steelers won, deal with it, stop crying and complaining.

And BTW, that fumble at the end was clearly a fumble, he did not have control of that ball whatsoever after he was hit.

I wouldn't say the Steelers defense played fantastic.  They came up with 2 huge plays, although one could be disputed.  But statistically that was probably their worst game of the season, giving up over 370 yards in the air and nearly blowing a double digit lead in the fourth quarter.  They may have stopped their running game, but who didn't this year?  The Cards had the lowest YPC avg. in the NFL this year, so that wasn't much of a feat.  They couldn't stop the Cardinals passing game, which is their whole offense.  So in that sense, the defense didn't live up to the task.  While they may have slowed Fitzgerald down for awhile, he exploded on them in the end and while he was being held in check Breaston and Boldin were doing just fine. 

The officiating was bad, there's no way around that.  It was bad on both sides, but far worse for the Cardinals.  They did have a chance to win in the end though, so the officials didn't decide the game.  They had every opportunity to take matters into their own hands.  They didn't, and the Steelers won.

[Mal Brossard]

That "fumble" on the last play should have been reviewed, period.  If that call gets overturned (his arm was moving forward before the ball came loose), factor in the 15 yard penalty, and this puts Arizona at the 29 with 5 seconds left and a chance to win.  Even if it doesn't get overturned, it should have been reviewed.  Calls that weren't anywhere near as close got reviews in the regular season and playoffs.  If you don't do it in the biggest game of the year, then when do you do it?

And why no 15 yards after Holmes' TD for using the football as a prop in a celebration?

The NFL-- and especially its officials-- is a joke.

And Toothlessberger was far from a great QB.  Look at their third quarter FG.  He started out 4/4 passing on that drive and couldn't finish it off.  First and 5 from the Arizona 5, from there it was 7 plays for 2 yards including 0/3 passing against what everyone panned as a weak defense.  Against a defense like Arizona's, great quarterbacks should put up 7 in those situations, whether by air or by ground.  Average QB's get the FG.  There were only two Steelers' offensive players in this game that I'd call "great": Holmes and Miller.  That's it.

The Cardinals have no run game to speak of.  No need to go bragging about it getting shut down.  That's not much of a feat.  When you play the Cardinals, you KNOW the pass is coming.  Look at the numbers: their leading rusher had 514 yards in the regular season.  Aside from Denver, every other NFL team's leading rusher had more yards.  The Cardinals were last in rushing yards.  Why is stopping this something worth talking about?

As for shutting down Fitzgerald, if you care to argue that, you can pretty much claim that the Cardinals shut down Holmes.  Take out the 64-yarder to Fitzgerald and he had 6 catches for 63 yards-- 10.5 yards per catch with a TD.  Take out Holmes' 40-yard catch, and he had 8 for 90-- 11.3 yards per catch with a TD.  Nearly identical numbers.

And you can't say Pittsburgh outplayed Arizona either.  Pitt's win comes down to one play: Harrison's TD.  If the Cards just try to power it up the middle rather than send out 4 WR, that takes 7 off the board from Pitt and puts up at least 3 for the Cards, possibly 7.  That's a 10-14 point swing in a 4-point game.

[G2N2R]

Like I said before, for some reason the Steelers went into a modified prevent defense with 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter, I blame that defensive calling on all those long passes that the Cardinals got off.. I mean c'mon the middle of the field was WIDE OPEN. I have no idea why they went into that prevent style D, but IMO it was a stupid move that almost cost them the game.

As for the run game being something to "brag" about, not really bragging at all, just bringing that up because so far in the playoffs the Cardinals have been pretty damn good at running the ball and i'm sure they thought they were going to have another good game on the ground against the Steelers too.. I know some analysts I saw said that they would. So the Steelers shutting that down to me was pretty good, considering what I just said.

I know the officiating was horrible, but as Faldor said it was bad on both sides.. perhaps worse for the Cards but they didn't lose the game because of the officiating. And that play your talking about with Holmes using the ball as a prop, that lasted like 4 seconds and was probably missed by any official.. and if they HAD called it, I woulda jumped outta my chair and screamed because those penalties are pathetically stupid.

You can nitpick every little blown call or no-call in that game if you want, but in the end it didn't come to the officials as the reason the Cards lost. The STeelers were simply the better team on that Sunday, and Faldor your right the pass defense was pretty atrocious but again.. that stupid modified prevent D they went into cost them a lot of yardage as well.

As for the Fumble not being reviewed, they did take a look at it and thats why they didn't stop the game in order to further review it.. I mean if they looked at it and saw nothing, why on earth would they stop a game and have someone look at the same exact thing they saw in order to make a ruling that they already made? Made no sense to stop the game at that point, it was clearly a fumble recovered by the Steelers.

[Axl4Prez2004]

they said if Arizona had ran Hightower out into the flat, Harrison would've had to cover him and the pick wouldn't have happened. So it was kind of a gaffe in the playcalling


that play ultimately didn't lose them the game though

they still had the lead with 2 minutes to go and their Defensive back choked it way by slipping down.

D, that was the brilliant and often under-appreciated Cris Collinsworth who pointed that out at halftime.  The guy always points out important shit like that.  Collinsworth rocks!

[D]

I dont want to hear how Warner's pick lost them the game.

Warner led them to the TD and a lead with 2:37 to go.

He did his job

also, if Arizona do score there, the game comes out the same cause as someone mentioned above, Fitz only scored on that huge play cause Pitt were playing very deep Dime coverage and left the middle of the field wide open.

[faldor]

I didn't get to see it myself but I heard that Bill Belichick was on the pre-game show in a pre-taped piece with Chris Collinsworth.  He was going over X's and O's for the game and he pointed out how you could attack the Steelers defense over the middle.  Pretty much a blueprint that Arizona followed on the go ahead touchdown to Larry Fitzgerald.  The man knows his stuff.

[sandman]

I didn't get to see it myself but I heard that Bill Belichick was on the pre-game show in a pre-taped piece with Chris Collinsworth.  He was going over X's and O's for the game and he pointed out how you could attack the Steelers defense over the middle.  Pretty much a blueprint that Arizona followed on the go ahead touchdown to Larry Fitzgerald.  The man knows his stuff.

and i'm sure he has the steelers practice tapes to prove it.

heyoooooooooooooooooo!

[Mal Brossard]

G2, so far you and the booth officials are the only people who thought the play was "clearly" a fumble.

[faldor]

I didn't get to see it myself but I heard that Bill Belichick was on the pre-game show in a pre-taped piece with Chris Collinsworth.  He was going over X's and O's for the game and he pointed out how you could attack the Steelers defense over the middle.  Pretty much a blueprint that Arizona followed on the go ahead touchdown to Larry Fitzgerald.  The man knows his stuff.

and i'm sure he has the steelers practice tapes to prove it.

heyoooooooooooooooooo!

You're welcome, for teeing that one up for you

[G2N2R]

G2, so far you and the booth officials are the only people who thought the play was "clearly" a fumble.

Just because your opinion has more company than mine, doesn't make it right.

IMO it was clear when he got hit, his arm still going back, the ball was moving around.. if you can honestly sit there and tell me that he had complete control of that ball once he got hit and managed to move his arm forward then you might need your eyes checked 

[*Timothy*]

Warner fumbled the fucking ball.

[D]

G2, so far you and the booth officials are the only people who thought the play was "clearly" a fumble.

Just because your opinion has more company than mine, doesn't make it right.

IMO it was clear when he got hit, his arm still going back, the ball was moving around.. if you can honestly sit there and tell me that he had complete control of that ball once he got hit and managed to move his arm forward then you might need your eyes checked 

If Tom Brady vs Oakland wasn't a fucking fumble, there is no way Warner's was

Pittsburgh was swiping back on Warner's arm and the ball went forward.

doesn't take a physics major to see that Warner propelled the ball forward and not the defender as the ball would've came out sideways or backwards.

[G2N2R]

G2, so far you and the booth officials are the only people who thought the play was "clearly" a fumble.

Just because your opinion has more company than mine, doesn't make it right.

IMO it was clear when he got hit, his arm still going back, the ball was moving around.. if you can honestly sit there and tell me that he had complete control of that ball once he got hit and managed to move his arm forward then you might need your eyes checked 

If Tom Brady vs Oakland wasn't a fucking fumble, there is no way Warner's was

Pittsburgh was swiping back on Warner's arm and the ball went forward.

doesn't take a physics major to see that Warner propelled the ball forward and not the defender as the ball would've came out sideways or backwards.

I'm a Patriots fan, always have been and always will be...

And YES Brady's was a fumble in the game against Oakland, I saw that play and I firmly believe it was a fumble, so the same standards apply here. If anything, you can make more of a case for Brady's being an incomplete pass then Warners. But yea, Warner fumbled.

[sandman]

it was ruled a fumble. not enough evidence to overturn. they did review it in the booth for almost 90 seconds and were able to determine there was no reason to delay the game for further review.

Brady's "fumble" was a completely different situation - tuck rule. the two plays are not comparable.