Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Super Bowl post mortem

Most of the following was written a few hours after Sunday's game:

Pittsburgh deserved the win, but, it was closer than the score indicated.

The Jackson push off was a bad call. Both players had equal contact both ways, and none of it affected the play.

I think Ben did get into the endzone, by a hair's breath.

The holding penalty that brought back the Jerramy Stevens 1st and Goal was bullshit. But if Stevens had caught the passes he shoulda caught, the game also would have been different.

The Randle El / Hines Ward gadget play took advantage of Etric Pruitt, who was playing for the injured Marquand Manuel. If Pruitt had stayed in coverage instead of biting on the trick, he likely would have broken that pass. Excellent play calling by Pittsburgh.

Shaun Alexander can't catch. We knew that. He had a pretty good game overall though.

The time management issue is interesting, I suppose. At the end of the first half, Hasselbeck was audibling out of a bad play. That burned time. Pittsburgh wisely realized Seattle had made adjustments and called a timeout. I suppose the Alexander run seemed odd, but it was also unexpected and gained decent yardage.

They did fall apart a little at the end because they needed two scores and had no time.

Field position / defensive struggles often seem boring to a lot of people.

*sigh*At least it wasn't embarrasing, and it leaves hope for next year. Hopefully they can buck the recent trend of losing Super Bowl teams having losing seasons.

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