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Home is where the ref is when it comes to blown call
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.''
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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/2010/10/24/1889591/home-is-where-the-ref-is-when.html#ixzz13OMVh5kj"]http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/24/1 ... z13OMVh5kj[/url]
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