No team has ever dropped 5 passes, missed 2 field goals, allowed a 75 yard rushing touchdown, allowed a 43 yard touchdown pass, and whiffed in two 2 minute drills and won a superbowl.

I think youre right about one thing….superbowl 40 was a gift to the Steelers but not for the reasons alot of Hawks fans are offering….

Bottom line, just tackle Parker and use the clock more efficiently in the closing minutes of both halves while not missing the fieldgoals (in as conducive of an environment as there will ever be for kicking fieldgoals) and the Seahawks probably had a good shot of winning. Given these realities, blaming the officials seems a little silly. It wasnt the officials that gave the game away. At best you could argue the officials made the Hawks mistakes more costly by decreasing their margin of error.

The Seahawks are a nice team-I really like how theyre constructed-but they made enough mistakes to doom themselves irrespective of things that were out of their control.

Including, as you point out here, the officials.

NO team has ever given up 181 yards rushing and won the superbowl.

Football is a quite different *sabermetric beast* than baseball, however, whining about officiating and making plays to the emotions isnt really a scietific discussion.

There are really two bottom lines about Sunday:
1. the perception of a majority of disputed calls really is influenced by both the viewer’s bias and limited camera angles (obviously of course, Hasselbeck shouldnt have been flagged for attempting a tackle). Clearly emotions are a major part of the mix (would we watch sports if they weren’t?). Nobody saw any of those plays from the angle of the officials.

2. Just about any team that made the playoffs this year couldve knocked off the Hawks on Sunday given the way they played penalties notwithstanding.

3. Clearly the match up the world really wanted to see was the Bengals vs. the Seahawks. Your anger should really be directed at the conspiritors that refused to allow that marquee game to happen.