Comments on: Roethlisberger’s Knee Was Not Down

By: eric

eric — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:11:12 +0000

I completely agree that his knee was not down. In several of the replay angles you can see the shadow that his knee casts on the field and there is never less than 4 inches between Ben’s leg and the ground. It was ludicrous that anything the ref saw under the hood constituted “conclusive video evidence” in his mind. Even worse is how completely this play is being ignored in postgame analyses. NFL Network had the VP of Officiating on last night to explain some of the calls and this one was completely ignored.

As to the lineman assisting Roethlisberger across the goal line, it is true that the rule exists stating that no player is allowed to assist a runner advancing the football except by blocking for him. However, how many times have we seen a pile move two, three or more yards due to lineman keeping the runner up and pushing him forward? Several times a game in EVERY game, every week of the season. It is a penalty that is not called, ever.

By: Fan4life

Fan4life — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 03:09:17 +0000

I appreciate you posting this. It’s been bugging me because I’ve seen the play numerous times on my HDTV, and I see air under that knee every time. How is that picture or video indisputable proof that his knee was on the ground? Rhetorical question there…

Fortunately, it didn’t cost the Steelers the game, but with all of the screaming Cardinals fans have been doing about getting ripped off, I haven’t seen one of them reference this play, the Harrison INT where Rolle got in the way of Fitz and slowed him down just a bit, which may have allowed Harrison that extra step, or the non-call unsportmanlike conduct penalty on Warner for intentionally taking his helmet off on the field after he fumbled to esentially end the game.

As a Steelers fan, I hated to see gray calls, even for my own team, and the Waener fumble should have been reviewed on the field, but Cardinals fans seem to only see what they want to see, and I guess I can’t blame them for that. My point is there were questionable calls on both sides, but the Cards were outmanned and outplayed in the end!

By: J.

J. — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:06:58 +0000

As a Steelers fan, I didn’t think his knee was down either, but I figured it was a wash; as a previous poster mentioned, you can’t pull a teammate into the end zone. It should have been 3rd & goal from the 16 after the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, and a field goal was the likely result anyway. This non-call was every bit as bad as the whole Matt Leinart/Reggie Bush play against Notre Dame a few years back (and I hate Notre Dame). I mean, either the head linesman or line judge (I’m not sure which was working that side of the field, but it doesn’t matter) had to have a perfect view. Hartwig didn’t have a very good game overall, but he got away with that one.

By: Marc

Marc — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 02:55:00 +0000

BTW – you’re right that it’s illegal to pull your guy across the line, but that’s not reviewable :)

By: Marc

Marc — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 02:54:29 +0000

You can tell his knee is not down in a slow motion video, because it never stops moving. If you stop the video, like they’ve done on this replay, there’s no way to tell how far his knee is from the ground. You have to watch it in continuous slow motion, and you’ll notice that his knee never stops moving (as it would, momentarily, if it impacted the ground). It is physically impossible that his knee touched the ground, given this observation :).

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:38:19 +0000

I’m not a Steelers fan, far from it actually. I am a Ravens / Redskins fan. But I will fight you to the bitter end when you say the man’s knee was down, because it wasn’t. Now you might have some argument about him resting on another player who was down, so by extension he was down, or his lineman assisting him across the goal line, but that does not appear to be what the call was. I don’t care what team it is, I don’t appreciate bad officiating, and this was a terrible video review of a very important call. The camera angle is bad for making this call, it is an optical illusion that makes you think his knee was down. However if you look at the shadows, and look at the way his body is moving in the video, you can see that the knee did not touch down. Now the point is moot because Pittsburgh won, but I posted this article in the 1st quarter, and with 2 minutes left to go in the game, it sure did look like this was going to be important.

By: timmy

timmy — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:25:39 +0000

not only is his knee down, his lineman dragged him into the endzone, which is against the rules.

By: TomM

TomM — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:29:01 +0000

The posted picture clearly shows Ben’s knee on the ground with part of his knee obscured below the grass line. What are you looking at?

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:21:27 +0000

Let’s see what the league admits to after it’s shown again and again. It baffles me as to what the official saw in the replay to overturn the score. Fortunately for Steelers fans (me included), it didn’t ultimately affect the game, but if Pittsburgh hadn’t scored at the end, they would have lost because of the points taken away by the official on a bad instant replay call.

By: Zach

Zach — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 02:03:28 +0000

The refs have not had a good year overall, and this Super Bowl is no different.