American Sports Thread

[Puckoon]

Quote from FB: "is Bane going to appear now"?

[MasterShake]

Game on again here. The 49ers D has arrived.

[tyroneman]

What. A. Game.

[heganboy]

I thought the biggest surprise of the night was bringing the replacement refs from the start of the season in for the last two minutes of the Super Bowl.

when the 2 big things about the game are the power going off and a blatant blown call to win the game for the 9ers that's pretty much an epic nfl fail.

And that's from someone with no horse in the race, would be livid if I was as 49ers fan.

[Declan]

I must say the faux empathy displayed by having those kids sing at the start really annoyed me but then I'm a cynical old shite really. Have it taped to watch tonight but from the radio this morning heganboy is right re the calls

[Minder]

I thought the biggest surprise of the night was bringing the replacement refs from the start of the season in for the last two minutes of the Super Bowl.

when the 2 big things about the game are the power going off and a blatant blown call to win the game for the 9ers that's pretty much an epic nfl fail.

And that's from someone with no horse in the race, would be livid if I was as 49ers fan.

Read this about a month ago and wondered if we would see a balls up -

http://www.footballzebras.com/2012/12/30/6035/

Playoff officials won't be best officials

Source: Jerome Boger to be Super Bowl referee

Hochuli, Steratore apparently shut out of postseason

In the first three weeks of the regular season, the NFL put an assorted group of officials on the field with questionable qualifications and tried to pass them off as professional caliber. That was a miserable failure. The league now wants to put otherwise unqualified officials in the Super Bowl, and thinks that no one will notice.


The standard has been, with a few additional criteria, that the highest ranking official in each position gets a Super Bowl assignment and runners-up go to the Conference Championship. Rankings are determined by evaluations of every single play and scores on written tests. Professionalism, maintaining the pace of the game, decisiveness, and physical fitness can also affect one's ranking.

According to two former NFL officials, the league office intends on having Jerome Boger officiate Super Bowl XLVII. Boger's season has not impressed even the casual fan this season. Just last week, Boger was pushed around, physically and figuratively, by Panthers quarterback Cam Newton. He "misspoke" over the microphone, according to a post-game interview, and meant to assess Newton with a non-ejectable foul, rather than one he announced that is a certain ejection. If he is that indecisive and unable to assert himself, even if it means throwing a quarterback out of the game, how will he manage such a high profile game?

Boger is relatively inexperienced in postseason officiating, especially in the context of such a high profile assignment; in the six years he was eligible for the playoffs, Boger has worked only three games. To put Boger in charge of a Super Bowl crew would require the NFL to change their qualification criteria. NFL vice president of football communications Michael Signora told me that is not the case:

There is no change to the Super Bowl assignment system.  In order for an official at any position to be eligible for the Super Bowl, he must have at least five years of NFL experience and either a conference championship game assignment or a playoff assignment in the Wild Card or Divisional round in three of the past five years.

If that "3-of-5″ provision is unfamiliar to you, it's because it's not been openly discussed in past years, but we understand that provision has been in effect for all positions except the referee position. If that provision is extended to the "white hat" position, Boger still doesn't qualify. In the past five postseasons, Boger has only worked on the field in the 2007 and 2009 Divisional Playoffs. (He also was assigned as an alternate in some of those off years.)

Merit system apparently discarded. To further bury the merit system used for postseason assignments, a former official said that there are officials on the Super Bowl roster who have failed written rules tests. Also, the supposed frontrunners will be sidelined for the playoffs.

"Ed Hochuli and Gene Steratore are not assigned to the playoffs," an officiating source said. Hochuli has been assigned to the playoffs every year he's been eligible since 1991, except for one. Steratore has been widely considered to be getting a Conference Championship game or Super Bowl assignment this season, based upon his on-field performance.

The assignments have not been released, and the NFL's policy is to not release assignments for any game prior to day of kickoff. Officials generally learn of their assignment following their Week 17 game. It is unclear how the assignments were leaked to the current officials, as my sources declined to discuss that. They also acknowledge that the NFL could change some of the assignments.

Ray Anderson, the league's outgoing executive vice president of football operations, apparently influenced the selection of postseason assignments. Carl Johnson, the vice president of officiating, will also be leaving at the end of the season. Typically, the assignments would be under the jurisdiction of Johnson, not Anderson.

One former official said the current officials he spoke with are not happy with the playoff assignment situation. He added, "the ones who work really hard and have very few 'downgrades' [wrong or missed calls] are being told, 'You don't get a playoff game'? That just doesn't seem right to me."

[MasterShake]

I thought the biggest surprise of the night was bringing the replacement refs from the start of the season in for the last two minutes of the Super Bowl.

when the 2 big things about the game are the power going off and a blatant blown call to win the game for the 9ers that's pretty much an epic nfl fail.

And that's from someone with no horse in the race, would be livid if I was as 49ers fan.

Spot on HB. Didn't give a damn who won, but 49ers were shortchanged badly I felt.

[tyroneman]

.  Posted by: MasterShake
« on: Today at 09:22:33 AM » Insert Quote
Quote from: heganboy on Today at 04:16:50 AM
I thought the biggest surprise of the night was bringing the replacement refs from the start of the season in for the last two minutes of the Super Bowl.

when the 2 big things about the game are the power going off and a blatant blown call to win the game for the 9ers that's pretty much an epic nfl fail.

And that's from someone with no horse in the race, would be livid if I was as 49ers fan.

Spot on HB. Didn't give a damn who won, but 49ers were shortchanged badly I felt.
 

Too many what ifs to say niners would have won based only on that call going the other way. Bad calls happen all the time.

They would still have had to score a TD, albeit with 4 more attempts and closer in but the Ravens would still have had time for a final drive.

And the biggest slice of luck already went their way with the lights going out and killing all the Baltimore momentum.

[ardal]

Feck the result.

According to the Times, 1,200,000,000 bottles of beer were comsummed duing the event. The Times referes to cases of beer, asked around and the natives say this is a 24 pack.

PS America football is basically rugby played by people afraid of breaking their nails or hair do. And yet I still enjoy watching the sport sin adverts

[Main Street]

If the game was to go down to the Wire, then it's obvious who was gonna come out on top.

I watched it this morning, it took me 90 minutes to go though a 4 hours 20 minutes recording of a 60 minute game.
I didn't know who the good guys were, 6 of one and half a dozen of the other, I suppose. I was edging towards the '49 ers until Martin Johnson came on, then I backed off.

[Wildweasel74]

49ers left the game behind in the 1st half, have been letting teams run up a lead on them before wearing them down in the 2nd half, left to big a gap to close last night, actually thought they were the better team. the call at the end was terrible, def holding, they had been calling that all year but didnt have the balls to throw the flag with 2mins to go so close to the line, another 4 go at 2/3yrs out would likely have lead to a 49ers try with a 2pt conversion  leaving 3 in it, good to see flacco win one, but i find the baltimore team in general unlikeable and the casue of many a flare up

[J70]

The problem with the holding at the end is that they were letting them go all night.

[heganboy]

i hear you J70, but would argue that they were v inconsistent with their calls, they let a lot go, but flagged a lot too

[GalwayBayBoy]

The problem with the holding at the end is that they were letting them go all night.

It's the Superbowl. You get away with way more than you would during the regular season. No official wants to decide the Superbowl with one of his calls in the last couple of minutes. They will let things go unless it is ridiculously blatant. Defenders know they can get away with more holding, bumping, etc.

[stew]

The right team won but the 49'ers will be back, they have the real deal at quarterback and they are young, hungry and extremely talented.

On the other hand B more are done, they are old and I dont think they will even make the playoffs next year.