So, did you hear there was a football game this past Sunday??I guess it was a pretty big game.

Yeah, of course I watched it. Let's get the important stuff out of the way first.?The commercials were disappointing to me. I liked a few, but for the most part, they were useless. No offense, but wasn't the Dove one a little out of place? My guess is that the majority of viewers were male, and while I'm sure more women watch the Super Bowl than any other game, it still didn't seem like it was very well placed. And, with all the supposed controversy about GoDaddy taking 14 tries to get their commercial approved, I expected a little more out of the commercial. It was pretty tame/lame. Take your pick.

• Seattle 10, Pittsburgh 21 (-3.5) (47 O/U) [P: $5.59, S: $10.00, O/U: $9.26, T: $24.85]: Ok. Enough about the commercials. When I opened my tracking spreadsheet, I realized I'd originally taken Seattle, when the spread first was announced. That's how the original write up happened - where I picked Seattle to win. Then I thought about the fact that Pittsburgh was 15-1 last season, and only fell off this year because Roethlisberger was hurt for part of the year. So I changed my mind - two weeks to make a pick will play mind tricks on you! Eventually though, I got it right. But no one cares about that. Let's talk about the game. Everyone is talking about the refs in this one. And I agree. The refs were horrible. The best commend I heard though: "Were those penalty flags the refs were throwing, or were they terrible towels?" So let's get the bad calls out of the way. Darrell Jackson's push off in the end zone. Yes, that's a penalty, but is rarely called. Should it have been called in this situation? Probably not, but you can't really fault a ref for calling it. Darrell Jackson's non-reception in the endzone. He had his left foot down, and his right foot hit the pylon. That's a touchdown, and it wasn't even reviewed! Next, the holding call that prevented Seattle from getting to the one yard line. Was it holding? Maybe, but it was no worse than any other play, and they don't call it every play, do they? They could - no doubt. But they don't, and it was a very ticky-tacky call. In case you didn't realize, two plays later, the refs strike again. Hasselbeck threw?a pick and made the tackle. Somehow, he was called for a chop block. Why would he be blocking in the first place? He wouldn't. Horrible call. That gave Pittsburgh an extra 15 yards, and that was when the Steelers ran their trick play where Randle El got the ball to Hines Ward. A sequence of five plays or so probably resulted in a 14 point swing. Given that Seattle lost by 11, do you see a problem there? Now, all the calls didn't go against Seattle. There was a pass interference call that I couldn't see against Pittsburgh too. Now, having said all that, were the refs the reason Seattle lost? Nope. It was Seattle. All around, really. Holmgren has a great offensive mind, but what happened at the end of the first half? Give him credit, though. His team so confused the Steelers that they took the timeout that Seattle should have. The 'Hawks wasted 20 seconds on that one play! Then, the end of the game, Holmgren didn't go for it on 4th down with less than seven minutes to go. You need two scores. Go for it! It doesn't matter if you lose by 11 or 18 - but being down by 11 or?3 (with a two point conversion)?is a huge difference! That's just a field goal. Speaking of special teams, does Seattle realize 1.) you don't have to boom the ball into the endzone when you punt, and 2.) if the ball lands outside of the endzone on a punt, you should down it? Seattle could have pinned Pittsburgh deep in their zone over and over early in the game, but didn't. Yes, it's only a difference of 15-20 yards, but it's really more than that. When a team is backed up to their endzone, a lot will go into a pseudo-panic mode when their quarterback is forced to back up into the endzone to make a play. But still, the offensive and special teams play for Seattle didn't lose the game (they didn't win it either!). It was two plays. Randle El to Ward and Willie Parker's 75 yard TD run. On both plays, the safety took too sharp of an angle to get to the guy, and by the time he got there, the offensive player was too far gone. Twice! That's 14 points. Take those away, and you have a 10-7 game. Include the other 14 point swing, and?the game could have been 17-0. So for all those people blaming the refs, it's time to take a look at the way Seattle played. They lost the game, not because of the refs, but because of a few bad plays on their part. And for all the Pittsburgh fans: your team didn't win. They just lost less!

Results Summary

• Picks (this week): 1 - 0 (100.00%) - Winnings: $5.59: Got this week perfect, but I picked the favorite, so it doesn't pay as well!
• Picks (playoffs):?6 -?5 (54.55%) - Winnings: ($20.69): Down for the playoffs. Picking winners is easy; making money at it isn't.
• Spread (this week): 1 - 0 (100.00%) - Winnings: $10.00: Got it right, so that's good.
• Spread (playoffs):?6 -?5 (54.55%) - Winnings: $10.00: And it put me up overall. Nice.
• Over/Under (this week): 1 - 0 (100.00%) - Winnings: $9.26: Once again, I did good on picking the over/under. I was honestly shocked that the number was 47. That seemed way too high for these teams - of course, I didn't realize Seattle had the number one offense, but the way the defense for Pittsburgh has been playing, it really didn't matter.
• Over/Under (playoffs):?7 -?4 (63.64%) - Winnings: $26.08: My most successful category all season. I'm not sure why.
• Total Weekly Winnings: $24.85: A nice positive note to finish the season.
• Total Playoffs Winnings: $15.40: Even better that it pushed me positive for the playoffs!

I think I'll throw together one more post for this season, with some cumulative results for the season. That may take a while to put together though. Too many other posts in the queue!

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