Early call sets tone for rest of Super Bowl

The call, technically, was correct, but I still have a problem with it.

The game is the Super Bowl, THE game of the year for football fans and even a few non-fans. Parties, pride, snacks and scores were all part of the game-day experience as the New England Patriots played the New York Giants at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Ind., on Feb. 5, trying to become the Super Bowl 46 champion. However, for me, one call early in the contest took a lot of the luster of the game away.

On New England's first possession Sunday, quarterback Tom Brady dropped back into his end zone to pass and, finding no one open, threw the ball away deep down the center of the field. A member of the officiating crew threw his yellow penalty flag for intentional grounding and New York's defense was credited with a safety, good for two-points and the first lead of the game.

As I said, the call was technically correct. Brady threw the ball into an area of the field where there was no receiver within 10 to 15 yards of where the ball landed. New York defensive lineman Justin Tuck had worked a nice spin-move and was bearing down on Brady as he threw the ball away. By rule a quarterback who is under pressure and throws the ball away to avoid a sack is penalized for intentional grounding. If the foul occurs in the end zone, it's a safety.

My problem with the call is, where's the consistency? If you follow the National Football League, even as a casual fan, you watch at least a few games each season. In every game, a quarterback throws the ball away. Sometimes it's into the stands or to the sideline. Sometimes it's deep down the field and the ball, like Brady's pass, lands in the field of play. At times the quarterback just throws the ball away because he can't find a good option to pass to and he's chalking one up to the defense — in effect saying, "Lets line up and play the next down."

I've also seen times where the quarterback is seemingly surprised by a blitz and under that pressure, though the blitzer is still a few steps away, the quarterback knows he doesn't have time to react — so, again, he throws the ball to a wide open spot. It happens all the time and in every game.

On rare occasions one of the officials may throw a flag and the quarterback is penalized for grounding. But to my memory, most of those calls happen when the defender was only one step away from the quarterback or the defender had a hold of the quarterback or at least some contact with him.

Tuck was two or three steps away from Brady when he released the ball. Neither the Head Referee (the guy in the white hat) nor the Umpire, both of whom are positioned in the offensive backfield, threw their flags on the play. The call was made by another referee who was positioned closer to where the ball landed.

The referees conferred and the Head Referee allowed the call to stand so he must have thought the call was technically correct. The announcers on television surmised, that because Tuck continued to move toward Brady after his spin-move, the Head Referee thought that constituted 'pressure on the quarterback' and that Brady grounded the ball to avoid the sack.

Poppycock!

As I pointed out earlier, Tuck was two or three steps from Brady when he released the pass. I'm not going to assume here that Brady would not have been sacked; however, the officials seemingly assumed that he would have been sacked by letting the call stand. The evidence from the rest of this game shows that Brady, even though he's not the fleetest of foot, did avoid what looked to be obvious sacks later in the game by ducking under or spinning away from a rusher — and these were defensive linemen who got their hands and arms on him.

That one referee call, a call not commonly made during the regular season, changed the feel and complexity of the game. Players in any sport only want one thing from officials: consistency in their calls. That call was not consistent with how games were called in the regular season.

Brady, to his credit, didn't argue the call, but judging from his body language as he left the field, it was obvious that it affected him as well as the rest of the Patriots.

It seemed to take most of the first-half for New England's offense to recover and re-focus, as they finally scored a touchdown late in the second quarter to take a one-point lead into halftime.

The Patriots looked to be taking control of the game at the start of the second-half, as they took the kick-off and drove for a touchdown and a 17 to 9 lead. The Giants, under the leadership of quarterback Eli Manning, refused to fold.

Manning and the Giants kept chipping away at the New England leads, scoring two field-goals to close to within 17-15 in the fourth quarter. That's when the safety call from earlier in the game began to have its late-game effect.

The Patriots, with their slim two-point lead, began a patient, time consuming, drive. They were looking to eat up yards and time in hopes of grinding out a close, hard fought victory.

When New England wide receiver Wes Welker dropped a seam-pass at the New York twenty-yard-line with four minutes to play, the game turned.

The Giants forced the Patriots to punt and Manning, who had the second best fourth-quarter passer-rating during the regular season, took over. He drove New York to the New England eleven-yard-line with just over a minute left in the game and forced the Patriots to take their second time-out of the game (they had lost a time-out earlier on a replay challenge).

New York, who was well within chip-shot field-goal range, didn't want to score too quickly and give New England and Tom Brady time to possibly win the game with a score of their own.

The Giants called a running play, a draw, to running back Ahmad Bradshaw who was told to fall down short of the goal-line if he wasn't tackled, to force New England to take their last time-out. Bradshaw took the hand-off and hit the hole hard. When no New England defender made any attempt to tackle him, Bradshaw attempted to squat-down just short of the goal-line but his momentum made him fall forward ... and into the end zone for the touchdown. New York attempted a two-point conversion, which failed, making the score 21 to 17, Giants.

This is the point where the first quarter call that cost New England the safety affected play calling in the fourth quarter.

Without the safety, the Giants touchdown would have made the score 19 to 17 and the Giants would have kicked the extra-point instead of attempting the two-point conversion. The score would have been 20 to 17, Giants, and New England would have had the ball with 57 seconds left, one time-out and needing only a field goal (in a dome stadium) to tie.

How much more exciting would that scenario to finish the Super Bowl have been? Remember the Buffalo Bills driving against the Giants and just missing their field goal attempt, wide-right? Remember these same Patriots winning not one, but two Super Bowls with last second field-goals?

One official's call, made in the first quarter and not consistent with how similar plays were called all season long, kept us away from a possible game-tying field goal and the first overtime in Super Bowl history.

I know there's no guarantee that the game would have played out the same way if the safety wasn't called in the first quarter. But these teams were so evenly matched that it's a shame that an official's call had that much effect on how the end of the game turned out.

As it was, Brady and the Patriots were left to try to drive 80-yards to score a game-winning touchdown against a Giants defense possibly playing the best they have played all year. The Patriots almost made it as their last second Hail-Mary pass fell to the turf, just out of the reach of tight end Rob Gronkowski, as time expired. The final score: New York 21, New England 17.

Congratulations to the Giants but, alas, for what could have been.