[cferneyh]

I will say that the block below the waist call on Hasselbeck was flat-out wrong. Too bad it had no real impact on the outcome of the game.

Everything else seemed legit to me...and i'm no casual fan, but one who watched every playoff game in its entirety.

If you are going to say that the NFL hands a game to a team, your claim really ought to be able to be backed by video evidence. Objectively speaking, every call the officials made (except the Hasselbeck "illegal block", which only gave PITT extra yardage after an already devastating INT) was supported by the video. I honestly do not understand what all the fuss is about.

Lost bets on Seattle, i suppose.... :roll:

No lost bet here. Though I was really, really tempted to put money on Pittsburgh to cover.

I don't understand how it is that feel your opinion of Ben's TD is somehow augmented by the fact that you watched every playoff game in its entirety. Did that give you eyes with better vision? No replay that I saw - and I watched the game in HDTV so I had pretty damn good resolution - showed the ball breaking the plane. I was left to conclude that the official saw something I didn't, but in a season full of pretty poor officiating, it wouldn't surprise me if the call had been flat out wrong.

And again, I don't care about either team so I've got no bias. I'm not going to go as far to say that the league gave the Steelers the Super Bowl, I'm just saying that there were some pretty questionable calls on a couple of major plays.