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I have to respectfully disagree. When warners arn started forward woodleys hand was on the ball. Warner did not have control of the ball as his arm was moving forward. Call = fumble.

Harrisons knee never hit the turf, it hit Fitz's leg. An opposing players body is not part of the field. The first part of harrison to hit the turf was his helmet after the ball crossed the plane. Call = touchdown

As far as clipping and blantant holds, give me the game tapes and I'll show you just as many against the cards blocking harrison and woodley. The difference is in this game the refs actually called a few vs the first time the steelers played the chargers and not 1 of the at least half dozen holds on harrison was called.

Roughing the passer, I agree that the penalty is crap, but by the letter of the rule it was a good call. That defensive player had time to pull up after Ben threw the ball. He would have still hit ben but he wouldn't have pushed him to the ground. If a QB is on the ground after a pass and the defenders arms are fully extended look for the roughing call. This cuddling the qb to the ground crap is getting old.

There was no roughing the kicker, it was roughing the holder. The NFL likes to protect defenseless players and I would agree being on your knees holding a ball on the ground is pretty defenseless. It may have been an unavoidable accident but I have seen many many blocked placekicks that didn't involve clobbering the holder.

Using the ball as a prop, eh. Yeah it should have been called. Do you really want to win a SB on a celebration call? I'll give you this one.

As for Harrison being ejected, they tried that on Lambert many moons ago. Fact is Harrison hit the guy on the back of his shoulder pads and pushed him down when he got up. The only thing bruised on that guy was his ego. He prolly called harrisons mom a ho (I can't prove that he did, you can't prove that he didn't). I remember playing high school football as a kid and my coach telling me when you are blocking you block the whole play. If your man goes down you keep him down, sit on him if you have to. If he gets up you push him back down. This was in 1993 loooong before harrison even started in the nfl. I would tell my kid watching "do that a little quiter so you don't draw a dumb penalty.

This isn't ballet. There is a reason those players wear all those pads.

No one is debating that it was a fumble or not, it was the fact that it wasn't even reviewed which is leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of many.

I agree 100% with this and have been waging similar arguments with other Steelers fans. No one is taking anything away from Pittsburgh. I think ultimately they deserved it, and were the better team that day. BUT this is another case of exposing how poor NFL officiating is becoming. No booth review, and to a lesser extent missing the excessive celebrating call are just setting the stage for something worse to happen. Can you imagine a Superbowl coming down to what happened in the Broncos-Charges game earlier this year? What a disaster that would be. The NFL needs to hire full-time officials, period.

Look, this is simple. If the officials were "handing the game to the Steelers" then answer me two quick questions:

1. Why would they call holding in the end zone and give the Cards a safety and the ball back? Holding is one of those penalties "that can be called or not called on every play" right? So if they want the Steelers to win, why call it?

2. On the last epic drive, with little time on the clock, why call holding AGAIN? Why pin the Steelers at 1st and 20 on their own 12, while they are TRAILING if you "want them to win"?

I am NOT saying they were wrong calls.

I am NOT saying the game had excellent officiating.

I AM saying that all this crying about the officials has to stop.

It has been a poorly officiated season. It was a poorly officiated game. If the Steelers had lost, I'm sure there would be a ton of posts pointing to blatant bad calls on their side. It's the nature of the game to complain when you lose.

Steelers won. Get over it. The Cards had the lead late. All they had to do was prevent the Steelers from driving 88 YARDS in the last two minutes. They didn't.

The only thing Peter is King of is hyperbole. This will all end next year when he proclaims that super bowl the "greatest ever". Which of course will change when in 2011 there is a new all time great super bowl, which will change when in 2012 the King will proclaim it the greatest super bowl ever, which will be .........well you get the picture.

QUOTE(#3):

Originally posted 08:46 AM ET  02.04 by TFo's Revenge

Look, this is simple. If the officials were "handing the game to the Steelers" then answer me two quick questions:1. Why would they call holding in the end zone and give the Cards a safety and the ball back? Holding is one of those penalties "that can be called or not called on every play" right? So if they want the Steelers to win, why call it?2. On the last epic drive, with little time on the clock, why call holding AGAIN? Why pin the Steelers at 1st and 20 on their own 12, while they are TRAILING if you "want them to win"?I am NOT saying they were wrong calls.I am NOT saying the game had excellent officiating.I AM saying that all this crying about the officials has to stop. It has been a poorly officiated season. It was a poorly officiated game. If the Steelers had lost, I'm sure there would be a ton of posts pointing to blatant bad calls on their side. It's the nature of the game to complain when you lose.Steelers won. Get over it. The Cards had the lead late. All they had to do was prevent the Steelers from driving 88 YARDS in the last two minutes. They didn't.

Well said TFo, well said.

QUOTE(#3):

Originally posted 08:46 AM ET  02.04 by TFo's Revenge

Look, this is simple. If the officials were "handing the game to the Steelers" then answer me two quick questions:1. Why would they call holding in the end zone and give the Cards a safety and the ball back? Holding is one of those penalties "that can be called or not called on every play" right? So if they want the Steelers to win, why call it?2. On the last epic drive, with little time on the clock, why call holding AGAIN? Why pin the Steelers at 1st and 20 on their own 12, while they are TRAILING if you "want them to win"?I am NOT saying they were wrong calls.I am NOT saying the game had excellent officiating.I AM saying that all this crying about the officials has to stop. It has been a poorly officiated season. It was a poorly officiated game. If the Steelers had lost, I'm sure there would be a ton of posts pointing to blatant bad calls on their side. It's the nature of the game to complain when you lose.Steelers won. Get over it. The Cards had the lead late. All they had to do was prevent the Steelers from driving 88 YARDS in the last two minutes. They didn't.

Well said TFo, excellent post.

Sorry for the double post...damn glitch.

Thank you!!!!

Yes, the Steelers won, no one disputes that, but the final play should have been vastly different. Peter King is continuously one of the worst writers on the "sports news websites" (SI.com, ESPN, FoxSports etc..). He is biased, he writes about coffee and "musings" and such things that have nothing to do with the NFL. Don't know how he keeps his gig.

The last play was obviously not a fumble. Tack on 2 15 yd penalties (Holmes used ball as prop, jocking my boy LeBron & Harrison, the bully, ripped his helmet off early), and you get a 30 yd attempt for a td from Warner. Pittsburgh would have probably stopped the attempt, but still, technically, the Cardinals should have gotten another chance.

Peter King is not a quality writer, and is obviously biased towards Pittsburgh. Anyone that has read his volume of work will agree with me.

The Cards won a game on a non-call of "roughing the Kicker" earlier in the year against the Cowboys (anyone remember Pro Bowl P Matt McBriar was put in IR for the year after that play) so karma got them back with a bogus "roughing the place-holder" call. Still I would have liked the game to have been decided with much less yellow flags involved. The refs should have let the teams just play & get away with a little more shoving than normal. I do believe the NFL needs to do something about facemask penalties; I don't understand how the offense can grab ahold of a defensive players helmet, yet a defender can't even come into contact, let alone touch the offensive player's helmet.

Unless Kurt Warner's wrist is at a 90 degree angle, he clearly does not have possession of the ball, which means it's a fumble.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/0902/nfl.super.b owl.XLIII/content.3.html

Haha meant to say Kurt Warner did not fumble.

QUOTE(#10):

Originally posted 09:37 AM ET  02.04 by LGP: Stanley Cup Champs

Unless Kurt Warner's wrist is at a 90 degree angle, he clearly does not have possession of the ball, which means it's a fumble. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/0902/nfl.super.b owl.XLIII/content.3.html

You are discounting what happened in the split second before that where Warner's arm was coming forward before it was hit.

El Greazy, just a tidbit of info, you can't have a roughing the kicker/punter call if the kick is actually blocked, which it was on the play McBriar's season was ended. That argument holds no water.

I am so tired of Peter King. He makes it sound like he always has all this inside information. And half the time he gets on subjects that have nothing to do with sports, which to me clearly indicates his lack of direction. He doesn't want to be just a sports reporter, he wants to be a writer. I read sports info for sports. Not crap on coffee or traveling problems.

There was no fumble. If it was a fumble the ball would have gone back, sideways, up, but not straight forward. Going forward implies Warner obviously was moving his arm in a throwing motion. Case closed. Madden brought up the empty hand rule, yet Warner had the ball knocked, but was still in his hand after the contact. Here's the video just so you can see it for the millionth time http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRHvm52T_WE

Just so we are clear on the rules here. If they had reviewed the fumble and ruled it an incomplete pass, the Cardinals would not have benefited from the 15 yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty with the ball at the 30 yard line. That was a post possession penalty. If the call was overturned, there is not post possession and the penalty would have been waved off. Even the talking heads on ESPN and the like don't get this.

I used to like Peter King, but this is just dumb.

WithOUT declaring if I personally think it was a fumble, there is no way a rational informed fan should be able to declare that a review in the booth is adequate.

Mr. King, I know you don???t want to bite the hand the feeds you, diss the institution that is the reason you are employed and read, but seriously, you need to grow a pair.

There is no saying the Cards would have won if it hadn't been ruled a fumble, but I think they got robbed of at least trying a last second jump ball attempt. Larry Fitzgerald is the best in the game right now at winning those and the Cards had 2 other stud receivers to camp in the endzone as well. As I said there was no guarantee with a hail mary, but we could have had an SB ending for the ages happen, instead we're just left with another NFL officiating controversy.

QUOTE(#13):

Originally posted 10:23 AM ET  02.04 by homercles82

You are discounting what happened in the split second before that where Warner's arm was coming forward before it was hit.

Split second? Seriously? Split second? Now's who's nitpicking. I guess the NFL will have to review every single possibly controversial play now.

No fumble. Game over. Get over it. When did FN become the site of so many crybabies?

The Steelers won and complaining about it does no good. Seriously what do you get from complaining about it? Anyways the booth did review it for 90 seconds...during turn over, penalty, and placing the ball in the correct spot.