We're a week removed from Super Bowl XL, but since I'm submitting this before the Pro Bowl, I'm going to go ahead and say that it's still football season, which should give me permission to write about it one last time. While some writers are saving their space to point fingers at Wayne Gretzky, I'm going use this opportunity to discuss the recent tendency toward questionable officiating in the NFL.
Last Monday, Seahawks' coach Mike Holmgren lashed out at the Super Bowl referees, saying, "We knew it was going to be tough going against the Pittsburgh Steelers. I didn't know we were going to have to play the guys in the striped shirts as well."
He was angry that the officials threw an interference flag on Darrell Jackson in the end zone that forced Seattle to settle for three points, that they reviewed and upheld Roethlisberger's rushing touchdown, that they made a holding call that killed the momentum of their fourth quarter drive.
What doesn't make sense about Holmgren's comments is that Seattle did not play well enough to win, even if the referees hadn't made the disputed calls. His resentment would be easier to swallow if the game had been close, or if the calls had been as blatantly incorrect as the overturned Troy Polamalu interception two weeks before in Pittsburgh's victory over the Indianapolis Colts. Instead, he used the referees as an excuse for his team's inability to keep up with Pittsburgh.
As far as the officiating goes, the pass interference call on Jackson was a bad one, but not necessarily wrong. It was bad in the sense that Jackson barely seemed to touch the defender, and the contact seemed incidental enough to be let go.
Unfortunately for Seattle, as far as the NFL rules -- and therefore the NFL referees -- are concerned, Jackson's arm extension constituted a penalty because he was "initiating contact with a defender by shoving or pushing off." But just after that definition comes the NFL fine print: "If there is any question whether contact is incidental, the ruling shall be no interference."
Never mind that a few years ago that would have been well inside the acknowledged realm of "incidental contact," and therefore not a penalty. The referees stopped giving players the benefit of the doubt in that area some time ago. Alas, bad judgment calls seem to happen often these days, but that is what happens when the rules become more important than the game itself.
And the bad calls happen to everyone; even the NFL's beloved Patriots had to suffer a few calls in Denver. You didn't hear a single Patriot player complain about that game because they all knew they played too poorly to win anyway.
As much as I believe Holmgren's comments were trivial because of Seattle's poor play, the NFL needs to do something about the officiating. The answer is not to use more replay or call penalties more closely. If anything, the push for hypercorrectness is what is making the officiating worse.
The game is hurting from a lack of flow that is a result of recent rule changes and a reliance on replay. I think replay is a good backup plan, but it's looking like more of a crutch these days than a safety net. And when a player cannot brush up on a receiver without incurring a game-changing penalty, the system has failed.
As fans, we all want the refs to enforce the rules and keep the contest fair, but that does not mean that making sure every call is correct should become a more important aspect of the game than the game itself.
Holmgren should have spent his press conference talking about the mistakes his team made, because somewhere along the line the refs are going to blow a few calls. The referees in the Super Bowl did put on a bad performance, but unfortunately that's just going to happen, with or without replay or rule changes.
