Steelers 23 - Dolphins 22

Believe it or not, we went through he entire ceremony at The Caring Place yesterday with no one checking a football score, so we left the building without knowing the outcome of the Steelers game. We drove home with no radio, and at about 4:20 or so, I hit the "play" button on the DVR remote and settled in to watch the game.

Interestingly enough, with the use of the fast forward button, I was able to finish watching the entire game by a little after 6:00. Of course, I would have finished up sooner, had it not been for the endless replay of what will be one of the most talked about plays of this week (if not the entire season), the fumble-that-wasn't-a-fumble-and-the-recovery-that-no-one-could-determine.


Hey, I'm happy for a Steelers win any way they can get one, but this one, well, it's hard to quite explain how they got away with this one. More to the point, it's not so much that they "got away" with it as they were handed a great big gift by the officials.

I can understand how it was initially ruled a TD by the linesman. I understand how the replay reversed the TD call and ruled a fumble. I cannot understand how they can't determine who recovered the fumble. As the Miami writer who was reprinted in the Post-Gazette this morning said "isn't that what officials are supposed to do?" My thought was if the same play occurred on the 40 yard line, wouldn't they have been able to figure out who recovered the ball?

Interestingly enough, in his Monday Morning QB column on SI.com today, Peter King says the officials made the right call (as opposed to "got the call right"). He says that once the play was ruled a touchdown, the resultant loose ball was irrelevant so no attention was paid as to who recovered it. It "seemed fishy" King wrote, "but what else were they going to do?"

It will be interesting to hear what the national football talking heads will have to say about this call in the weekly post-mortems. I am also sure that the League Office will comment. They will no doubt support the officials, but if I'm Gene Steretore, I'm thinking not to make plans for officiating any post-season games this year.

Some other comments:

• If I'm the Dolphins, I'm worried less about being screwed by an officiating call, and more about starting the game with two fumble recoveries inside the Steelers 25 yard line and coming away with only two field goals.
• You may not want to invite Ben Roethlisberger to your daughter's Coming Out Party, but is there a better QB in the NFL right now? I'll give you Peyton Manning, maybe, but I'll put Ben ahead of Brady, Brees and all the rest of them.
• I mean, when the Steelers got the ball at mid-field after the Dolphins went ahead 22-20, was there any doubt that Roethlisberger would lead them down field to a score (the ultimate unconventional nature of that score notwithstanding)?
• Earlier in the season, I said that Hines Ward is the greatest Steelers receiver ever. He only seems to get better each year.
• The loss of Aaron Smith, probably for the season, is huge. Time for Ziggy Hood to show he was worth that #1 draft pick.
• One of the things you sacrifice, if you could call it that, when watching a game and using the FF button, is that you miss much of the commentary of the broadcasters. However one of the things I did pick up was the fact that Dan Dierdorf was definitely NOT a big fan of the emphasis on safety and taking away the head hits in football. I mean there was pure blood lust in his voice as he bemoaned what was being taken away from the game by the wimps and pu****s in the NFL office. He didn't use those words, but they sure were implied.

OK, next week, Rooney U. faces the Super Bowl Champs, who are coming off a humiliating loss to the Browns, on the Sunday Night game. That could be one of the best match-ups of the first half of the season.