Steelers: Ending the narrative that Pittsburgh got "bailed out" by the refs
The Pittsburgh Steelers are waking up 4-2 and fresh off a big road win this morning. Proving capable of scoring late, and pressuring the Rams with their defensive dominance, it was a good team win for the Steelers. Yet, many think it shouldn't have been a victory at all: Bad Spot? Try Again So this […]
The Pittsburgh Steelers are waking up 4-2 and fresh off a big road win this morning.
Proving capable of scoring late, and pressuring the Rams with their defensive dominance, it was a good team win for the Steelers.
Yet, many think it shouldn't have been a victory at all:
Bad Spot? Try Again
So this is the play of controversy that is taking the NFL by storm after a poor officiating day around the league.
The Steelers ultimately won the game with this play, seeing as they were awarded the first down, and just took kneel downs to end the game following the two-minute warning as the Rams looked on hopelessly without their timeouts.
The problem many have is that not only was the spot questionable (according to them) but that the Rams couldn't challenge the spot (since they were out of timeouts) and the play wasn't automatically reviewed since it wasn't inside of two minutes.
My response: Too bad.
Maybe instead of saying Pittsburgh caught a break, how about we look to the fact that the Rams had to burn a timeout early in the third quarter to get aligned correctly on offense, or how about the fact they gave up a critical third and long conversion, even after Diontae Johnson's penalty negated the initial conversion.
Or, how about the fact that Rams kicker Brett Maher missed not one, but two field goals and an extra point, leaving seven points on the board.
So was it a touchy spot? Maybe, but in the end it didn't matter. Pittsburgh made less mistakes, and captilzed more.
Don't believe me, just listen to the Rams themselves:
“It doesn’t matter what I think. That was the spot they made,” McVay told reporters after the game. “It’s not a challengeable play but I’m not going to sit here and make any excuses about stuff that didn’t go down. Those plays shouldn’t have come down to that if we executed like we were capable of. You guys saw the same stuff that I did, but it doesn’t do any good. That was what was called and that’s what we have to be able to live with.”
That's it. Period, end of story. The media and fans tend to make far too much of officiating, as the game has so much more going into it then a call here or there. So miss me with the excuses.
Steelers’ George Pickens admits the Rams ‘got under his skin’ on Sunday
Here is what Pickens had to say in regard to the multiple penalties he received.
