Regular season would be cool. I thought they meant more pre-season games. There's already too many of those.

We're still bitter in Indy about the playoff loss to the Pats two years back, where the refs basically decided to ignore pass interference and holding for the day. That hurt.

Of course, then they did the new and improved no chuck rule and we still got our asses handed to us. That hurt too.

Man, I hate the Patriots.

Remember when the grounds crew ploughed the snow off the field right where the Pats wanted to kick a field goal?

"The scene was reminiscent of the Dec. 12, 1982, "Snowplow Game," when Mark Henderson, a convict on work release, used a snowplow to clear a spot for John Smith to kick the winning field goal in New England's 3-0 victory over the Miami Dolphins."

As a Steelers fan, I was pissed off about this too, until I remembered Antwan Randel-El's bonehead decision to try to lateral the ball to Hines Ward following a 60 yard play down to the Patriots 10 yard line. The lateral, of course, ended up as a fumble recovered by the Pats,

Had the Steelers scored then, the clock problems probably wouldn't seem as significant today. The truth is, the Steelers should have won the game and they gave it away.

Speaking of boneheaded, Joe Horn really should have tried holding on to that ball as he extended it to the endzone in his game against the Gints.

They're about to score and... then it's a touchback with the other team in possession.

More of a physical error than a mental one, as Randel El's was, but still. Don't throw your arm out like that unless you've got a really good grip on the ball.

yeah but the spread..... that's all that really matters

Allow me to propose the Sports Butterfly Effect. Any tiny change at a previous point in the game, no matter how small, will change the rest of the game in an unpredictable way.

If a butterfly flaps its wings and causes them to drop the touchdown pass in the 3rd quarter, and they later lose by fewer than 6 points, you can't just say that dropping that ball cost them the game. If they had caught it, the opponents would have known that they were behind, or less ahead, and would have played differently.

Anyway, in this case, both teams would have used the correct amount of time differently than they really did. You can't just say that the Pats would have just had 29 seconds. The entire game would have been different in an unpredictable way.

I would love to see the 4th quarter again and try to figure out how both teams would have managed the clock without the extra 52 seconds.

It's possible that it didnt make much difference, but the Steeler fans certainly have a right to feel robbed.

I've seen the home clock rob a few teams and I have to think that timekeeper just slunk out of that gym, packed his shit and moved to the Ozarks.

Anyone else watching the "Butkus coaches high school football" reality show on ESPN?

That game just broke my heart.

Stupid freakin' Patriot bastards from stupid freakin' bastard-making Boston.

Interesting tidbit: After the first Super Bowl win, Tom Brady bought a huge shadowbox frame from A.C. Moore Arts and Crafts in Danvers. It was for Super Bowl memoribilia, he said, and he paid with two non-counterfeit twenties. Seemed like a nice enough guy.

But I still hate them all.

At least I can gloat about the Bengals (3-0, suckahs!)

Anonymous Coward:

Yes, that's true, especially for errors made early in a game.

But for errors made late, like Brady's fumble becoming a "tucked" incomplete pass, then there isn't a Butterfly Effect as there's not much left to change thereafter.

But could he have done it in 29 seconds?

[insert diety(s) of choice here] are obviously Patriot fan(s).

One is a fluke
Twice a coincidence
Three times is enemy action (or divine intervention in this case)

Kurt, I remember that snow-plow field goal too - I was laughing at the time.

Ron Meyer swore he had nothing to do with it.

But he was a sneaky bastard at SMU too so I didn't believe him.

I about jumped through the TV at that stupid lateral after he had already gained so many yards. Plus El had to figure that Hines was going up to concentrate on blocking, as he does so often.

And yeah, spongeworthy, the timekeepers had best not show their faces. Pittsburgh is SERIOUS about their football.

--Lipstick in Mourning

Both teams played with the same amount of time on the clock. One play never is the entire reason for the outcome of a game. And it probably would have just gone into overtime where Randle El would have another chance to lateral to someone not looking. As soon as I put a player on my fantasy team they do stupid stuff.

And as a Bengals (3:0) fan, I can say, who really cares why the Steelers lose?

How effectively would either team have used that extra 52 seconds anyway? Teams rarely play with as much urgency or efficiency in the first minute or so of the 4th quarter as they do in the last minute of the 4th, unless it's a team who's down by a shitload and has to make up some ground.

NFL refs make mistakes but are rarely game changers (tuck rule game being the exception and the extra 52 seconds the norm). If you want to complain about officals mistakes watch the college game, particularly the 2nd tier conferences.

Besides the Pats wouldn't have called the extra timeout at 1:31 if the 52 seconds weren't there (two timeouts called on the same play - the 2nd was called after the Steelers lined up, Belechek just wanted a 'peek').

I'm astonished, though, that I didn't see anything in the 'vanilla' post game write ups nor did the announcers talk about Cowher's clock management. I was astonished while the clock ran down from about 40 seconds that the Steelers sat on a timeout. It seems to me that once you called the timeout at 50 seconds you're committed to calling the 2nd one too.

If it were me I wouldn't have called any timeouts. At the 50 second point the Pats were scrambling to the line and Brady would have likely spiked the ball or thrown to the sidelines - nowhere near the middle of the field. Assuming an incomplete pass it would have been 4th down with about 40 seconds left and the Pats would be going for a nearly 50 yard field goal (yet to happen at Heinz) AND the Steelers would have had two timeouts along with the 35 or so seconds. The clock might have lost the game for the Steelers but it wasn't the clock operator - it was Cowher's clock management.

The Patriots are evil.
Pure and simple.
Believing that they will get their comeuppance soon -- and that it will subsequently cause their fans to feel even one-tenth of the pain that the Patriots have caused me over the last several years -- keeps me going. Heaven knows, the entire state of Massachusetts has had its share of sports success in recent years.

I'm from Boston, home of the two anal aperatures elected to the U.S. Senate, so I know what I'm talking about.

Here's the deal: Bill Belichik made a deal with Satan - 'cause nobody is that lucky.

Seriously, I started to hate the Patriots when the very wealthy Bob Kraft threatened to move the team to Hartford, CT. unless the Massholes forked over the cash to build a new stadium. I said to myself, "Fuck 'em. Let them move to Connecticut and we'll get a new team in Boston." Can you say "Boston Panthers"? Yea, we could have had the Panthers or some other team.

Then, to really show how much of a cold-hearted prick Belichik is, he shit-cans Drew Bledsoe. Don't get me wrong, Bledsoe sucked. But he was ours and he was loyal. (Drew is a pocket-passer and the days of the pocket passer who runs like a giraffe on stilts are long gone.)

Okay, so now I like Tom Brady. He's truly a stand-up guy. But I still want the Pats and the Red Sox to lose because it makes the ass-wipe-talk-radio-guys all crazy and shit.

As a lifelong Dolphins fan, I can honestly say that there can only be one thing worse than the Patriots having a frickin' dynasty.

That would be if the Bills ha...

Oh.

That's right.

My life sucks.

Yeah, they're lucky. And you forgot about the snowplow game against the Dolphins.

But how do you explain this strange occurrance taking place in Pittsburgh? With locally hired timekeepers?

Well, that and Mass's 2 senators are a-holes.

Everyone, especially Raiders fans, do yourself a favor and search out the video of the "tuck rule" incident. The Raiders actually BENEFITTED from the tuck rule!! If the refs were really watching, they would have noticed http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/Article.php?Page=370
Charles Woodson deliver a massive head slap to Tom Brady while delivering the blow that caused the Tuck rule incident. This would have resulted in anything being called back and a 15 yard penalty, automatic first down, not an incomplete pass.

All y'all that hate the Pats, the Sox are just plain jealous! Ace, you give them props and claim to like them, so I won't say anything other than get the full story! The incident that happened in Pittsburgh was an unfortunate incident and one that none of us web geniuses will ever figure out (who WOULD have won), except that we probably all agree the timekeeper should be put back into timing Division III3A and the linesman shipped to the European football league.

If someone wants to talk about bias, compare New Englands schedule to that of any other tough team in the league. ESPECIALLY INDY!! Indy plays NOONE, is set to go into Foxboro after their bye and play New England. New England meanwhile will play San Diego, Denver in Denver (never easy) already played the NOW hapless Raiders(everyone thought that it would be tough), lost to the resurgent Panthers, and must face the Falcons and Michael Vick at home.

Indy gets to face Tennessee a shadow of themselves, Houston and SAN FRANCISCO?? Their only opponent tough is the charged up Bungles, so who know what will happen there.

Every game the Pats have, they play divisional opponents, or teams that are winners or tough in their home stadiums, (Denver, K.C. and Atlanta) and yet they prevail everytime. Check it out. The only thing close to a gimme seems to be the HOME game against the Saints. Which is the way that it should be!! 3 Super Bowls in 4 years, and the year without they were 10-6 and missed the playoffs via inter-divisional record.

There is obviously no excuse for the 3-0 Miami game, other than someone wanting to see someone win the freaking coldest game end.

The tuck rule is an invention of the MSM in sports to ignore the fact that they NEVER in a million years predicted the rise of Tom Brady, Bill Bellicheck or Adam Vinatieri.

They are all openly rooting for Peyton Manning and can barely hide their zeal. The Colts is all that you hear about, and how great that the defense is now playing! Oh really?! Who have they played again? Two teams without an offensive weapon, and Jacksonville.

Us New Englanders that enjoy sports and rooted for the Pats and Red Sox, and Bruins, and Celtics have certainly loved watching this run, and more than that, we felt that after decades of really crappy teams and almost beens, this is our just reward!

Later Ace...I still check out your site all the time, just haven't really left comments in a while!

The Patriots are evil. Pure and simple.

The GEMATRICULATOR insists the PATRIOTS are 95% good and only 5% evil

As I said above - its divine intervention - nobody gets a 95% out of the Gematriculator.

I'll echo the points made by others, particularly the "butterfly effect" point. A controversial, or blown call at the very end of the game is worth discussing, because there isn't time for the butterfly effect to make much difference. But a change occurring with almost a whole quarter to go is a very different story.

Someone pointed out the burning of a TO, which probably wouldn't occur if there were less time left.

I'll point out that the tying TD drive started with just under 3 minutes (IIRC.) While it didn't take long to complete, one starts a drive differently depending on whether you have roughly three minutes or under two minutes. Assuming nothing else changed to that point (itself highly unlikely), with 52 seconds fewer the final Pittsburgh drive starts with just about two minutes, rather than almost three. That's a world of difference in terms of the plays you might call. And I don't need a world of difference – I only need to argue it would have changed ONE play. Maybe they go more to pass than run, connect and score almost immediately, still leaving the Pats with almost 2 minutes. Or making they pass and miss, leading to a seven point win for the Pats.

Phil

I'm shocked, shocked, shocked that anyone even cares about how Steeler fans feel ! I sure don't. The Steelers lost because they couldn't tackle one-on-one when Brady was dumping passes in the last seconds. HA the vaunted Steeler defense!!!!

all i know is that it was a great game. these two teams will meet again in the playoffs no doubt.