Call it the Immaculate Deception

[Starlifter]

Re: Call it the Immaculate Deception

it's likely miami got jobbed on that play BUT they still had the ball with over 2 minutes and all they needed was a FG to win. If that had been the last play of the game - they might have an argument. Unfortunately for their whining credibility - the game is 60 minutes long, not 57:30.

[hawaiiansteel]

Re: Call it the Immaculate Deception

Dolphins lament controversial call in end zone

By Mark Kaboly
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, October 25, 2010


MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Ask the Steelers, and they will guarantee they recovered the ball in the end zone.

From Ben Roethlisberger to Doug Legursky to Jonathan Scott, they all had a part of it under the pile of humanity.

Of course, the Miami Dolphins are absolutely positive that linebacker Ikaika Alama-Francis not only recovered the loose ball, but got up and handed it to an official.

As for referee Gene Steratore and the official in the replay booth, they had no clue, and that was just fine with the Steelers.

Steratore, a Washington, Pa. native, overturned a touchdown run by Roethlisberger with the Steelers trailing 22-20 and 2:37 remaining. But Steratore also ruled that video evidence did not show who actually recovered the fumble in the end zone.

Thanks to the controversial call, the ball was awarded back to the Steelers at the 1-yard line, and Jeff Reed kicked the go-ahead field goal as the Steelers held on for a 23-22 win.

"We confirmed that there was a fumble and were not able to confirm a clear recovery by the defense," said Steratore, who also noted that since it was ruled a touchdown on the field that his crew did not need determine who recovered the loose ball.

The ruling left the Dolphins fuming.

"I just don't understand the ruling" Alama-Francis said.

Replays showed that Alama-Francis came out of the pile with the ball, but there was no video evidence showing who actually recovered it.

"You are damn right I recovered that," Alama-Francis said. "Nobody else had that ball but me, and I wasn't going to let it go. I am thinking, 'I just made the play to win the game for us.'"

Dolphins linebacker Karlos Dansby said officials on the field told him the review was out of their control.

"They said that everybody upstairs had to agree that we had control of the ball," Dansby said. "They leave it to the guys upstairs? (The on-field refs) have to see it. They have to make sure they see it. You are right there in the action, you overrule that.

"We gave the official the ball. We had the ball. It's sad, sad, very sad."

Scott, the Steelers offensive lineman, had a perfectly good explanation why Alama-Francis ultimately had control of the ball.

"The ref said, 'It's a touchdown, it's a touchdown, let go, let go,'" Scott said. "It is logic. You let go of the ball."

Added Legursky: "One other guy had one arm in there. Four arms against one and we came up with it."

Miami linebacker Channing Crowder, of course, saw it in a different way.

"I saw 59 grab the ball, jump on it first and get up with it," he said. "I have been under the pile a number of times and nobody ever just gave me the ball to give it back."

Still, Miami had a chance to win the game with more than two minutes left on the clock. Kicker Dan Carpenter already had converted five field goals, but the Dolphins couldn't get him in position for a sixth. They moved the ball only four yards before turning it over on downs.

"You hear that the ball just didn't bounce our way," Dansby said. "The ball did bounce our way. They just took it from us."

Mark Kaboly can be reached at [email="mkaboly@dailynewsemail.com"]mkaboly@dailynewsemail.com[/email] or 412-664-9161.

[url="http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/steelers/print_705970.html"]http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsbu ... 05970.html[/url]

[NJ-STEELER]

Re: Call it the Immaculate Deception

i want to see all these articles say something about the Best TD.

troy tries flying up the middle and is tackled to the ground...no call

[Crash]

Re: Call it the Immaculate Deception

Or the illegal contact on Hines (twice) that wasn't called and we kicked a FG.

[fordfixer]

Re: Call it the Immaculate Deception

Home is where the ref is when it comes to blown call
[url="http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/25/1889591/home-is-where-the-ref-is-when.html"]http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/25/1 ... -when.html[/url]

By ARMANDO SALGUERO
[email="asalguero@MiamiHerald.com"]asalguero@MiamiHerald.com[/email]

Home cooking. That's what it felt like when this game began and there were almost as many black jerseys and Terrible Towels in the stands as there were Dolphins fans. That's definitely how it felt when referee and Pittsburgh native Gene Steratore authored an epic collapse of the NFL replay system by correcting a bad call, but going only halfway on the fix.

And that's how it felt when the Dolphins walked dejectedly off the field at Sun Life Stadium on Sunday, 23-22 losers, a team winless in three outings on what feels less and lees like their home field.

``Straight up, they took the game from us,'' an animated Karlos Dansby said as at least one teammate yelled, ``Preach!'' in the background.

``You can't do that to a team that's fighting like that. We fought [Sunday],'' he said. ``We fought a 76-round battle. It was a fight, a fistfight. And we were winning and we won it. And they took it from us. Bottom line, they knew we had the ball, they saw four people put their hands on the ball, and once you put your hands on it, that's possession. And we came up with the ball. There's no way you don't see that upstairs. Everybody saw it.''

The person who needed to see Ikaika Alama-Francis come up with a Ben Roethlisberger fourth-quarter fumble in the end zone didn't see it. The replays confirmed to Steratore that the initial call of touchdown Pittsburgh was wrong, and he overturned that.

PARTIAL CORRECTION

But the replay didn't show Alama-Francis walking around in the end zone with the ball and then handing it to the back judge. And so Steratore ruled replay could not award the Dolphins the football.

This, by the way, is an innovative way of using replay. It corrects a bang-bang call on the field that humans cannot be blamed for missing. But then prevents the humans from ruling on the recovery that was crystal clear to them because the cameras didn't capture it.

``They took the ball from Ike,'' Dansby continued. ``I asked the back judge and said, `You knew we had the ball.' He said, `Yeah, 59 had the ball. It's out of our hands. It's out of our control. The guys upstairs have to see it.' They took it from us, bottom line.''

That is true and accurate and painful. It is so painful Dansby compared Sunday's loss to the one he suffered at the hands of these Steelers on a Super Bowl Sunday two years ago.

There are two sides to this story: The Dolphins side and the wrong side. Several Steelers players claimed they recovered the Roethlisberger fumble once the ball was loose even though independent photos show otherwise.

Roethlisberger actually said he had ``a whole arm around [the ball] until the ref was patting me on the back, saying, `Touchdown,' so I let it go.''

Sure, Ben. And you weren't in that Georgia bathroom last summer, either.

It also rubs salt in an open wound that Steratore is from Pittsburgh. He was born and reared in a suburb 30 miles outside the city and still lives and owns a business in the region. That is not a suggestion of impropriety but a statement of fact.

The NFL, for all its proactive work on helmet-to-helmet hits to protect players, needs to do a better job protecting its integrity by doing one easy thing: Assign officials to games that do not involve their hometown teams.

It's not Steratore's fault he's from Pittsburgh. But it is the NFL's fault that a Pittsburgh native made the key and controversial call in a game involving his hometown team and that call favored that team.

The NFL is better than that. The NFL should be better than that.

The Dolphins should also be better.

This team is terrible at home. They cannot win at night and cannot win early in the day at home. There aren't many other choices, because the NFL isn't likely to grant dawn start times.

Memo to the Dolphins: If you cannot win at home, you cannot make the playoffs no matter how much you fight and how well you play on the road.

The Dolphins didn't play exceedingly well at home Sunday. The running game was absent. The third-down defense was absent. The special teams were inconsistent. And the offensive play-calling was at times inexplicable.

STILL STEAMING

One can argue the Dolphins should not have put themselves in a position that allows any official to decide an outcome. Fair. But it doesn't change the fact a blown call cost the Dolphins a win at home.

``I made the play that won us the game,'' Alama-Francis said afterward. ``It was a fumble and I recovered it in the end zone. But they ruled it the way they ruled it, and I just don't understand it. They did what they did.''


Read more: [url="http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/25/1889591/home-is-where-the-ref-is-when.html#ixzz13Lg8k4gb"]http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/25/1 ... z13Lg8k4gb[/url]

[NJ-STEELER]

Re: Call it the Immaculate Deception

even if that was their ball

how is the game over?


we had 3 time outs and the 2 minute warning


quit yer bitching

[Zig]

Re: Call it the Immaculate Deception

All they know is this: The Pittsburgh Steelers might have stolen one just like they did years ago with that famed catch.

This is the line that pisses me off.....

Stole one....? How about making one of the greatest catches/plays in NFL history to win the game.

Piss-co makes it sound like Franco's catch wasn't legal or shouldn't have counted!

[hawaiiansteel]

Re: Call it the Immaculate Deception

All they know is this: The Pittsburgh Steelers might have stolen one just like they did years ago with that famed catch.

This is the line that pisses me off.....

Stole one....? How about making one of the greatest catches/plays in NFL history to win the game.

even SteelCityInsider.net is using that term...


Steelers steal one



Ben Roethlisberger fumbles (AP photo)

By SteelCityInsider.net
Posted Oct 24, 2010


The Steelers struggled to a 23-22 win at Miami, and may have lost Aaron Smith for a significant portion of time.

The visiting Steelers improved to 5-1 with a hard-fought and controversial 23-22 win over the Miami Dolphins.

Jeff Reed kicked an 18-yard field goal with 2:26 remaining, and the Steelers’ defense forced an interception on the Dolphins’ fourth play of the ensuing possession, a fourth-and-6 pass which replay showed was actually a sack/forced fumble by rookie Jason Worilds. As it was, James Harrison will get credit for an interception that he had trapped off the ground.

Replay wasn’t used for that final play, and was useless on the game’s most controversial play.

On the third-down play before Reed’s game-winning kick, Ben Roethlisberger scored an apparent touchdown that was overruled when replay revealed he had fumbled a half-yard before the goal line. But replay could not show which team recovered the fumble, so the Steelers were given the ball back at the half-yard line and Reed kicked his third field goal of the game.

The Steelers fell behind 6-0 after a pair of early fumbles, but rallied for a 17-9 lead on Roethlisberger’s 53-yard bomb to Mike Wallace in the second quarter.

The Dolphins rallied with a Chad Henne 26-yard touchdown pass to Davone Bess and two more field goals by Dan Carpenter, who kicked five in the game. Carpenter’s last kick, from 40 yards, gave the Dolphins a 22-20 lead with 5:17 left.

It was a physical contest in which the Steelers rushed for only 58 yards and held the Dolphins to 64 yards rushing.

Roethlisberger, who fumbled three times, completed 19 of 27 passes for 302 yards and touchdown passes to Wallace and Hines Ward.

The Steelers suffered a big loss when Aaron Smith tore his left triceps muscle in the third quarter. The prognosis did not sound positive.

“We lost some men through the course of the day,” said Steelers coach Mike Tomlin. “LaMarr Woodley has a hamstring; we don’t know the extent of that from a long-term standpoint. Flozell Adams has a left ankle (injury); same thing, although I think it’s a low ankle, so there’s a little optimism there. Aaron Smith looks like he has a torn triceps, of course that is not good, but such is life in the National Football League. We’ll adapt.”

[url="http://pit.scout.com/2/1015034.html"]http://pit.scout.com/2/1015034.html[/url]

[rpmpit]

Re: Call it the Immaculate Deception

Thought I saw a replay showing Bens arm around the ball when he first dives for it in the endzone (I could tell it was his because of the pink wristband). Was I dreaming? Wishful thinking getting the better of me?? Anyone else see this?