“I know they wanted Indy to win this game,” Porter told The New York Times. “The whole world loves Peyton Manning, but come on man, don’t take the game away from us.
“I felt they were cheating us. When the interception happened, everybody in the world knew that was an interception. Don’t cheat us that bad. When they did that, they really want Peyton Manning and these guys to win the Super Bowl. They are just going to straight take it for them. I felt that they were like ‘We don’t even care if you know we’re cheating. We’re cheating for them.’ ”
Porter said he was relieved in more ways than one when Colts kicker Mike Vanderjagt missed a 46-yard field goal try with 21 seconds left that would have tied the score.
“The way the refs were going, I wouldn’t have trusted them in overtime,” Porter told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. “If we hadn’t won, they would have cheated us in overtime.” (Source)
During the not so Super Bowl there were several plays that cheated the Seahawks. The actual score would have been much different if the referees had not helped Pittsburgh along the way. Lets take a look:
- Ben Rothlisberger (the only player on that team I like) dives for the end zone and does not make it in. The ball never crossed the plane of the goal line and the refs even reviewed it. Ray Charles could have seen that the only time the ball was over the line was when Ben pushed it there after he was down. They called it a touchdown.
- Seattle throws a touchdown and it is called back because of pass interference when the replay clearly shows that the Pittsburgh defender made contact (by grabbing at the arm of the receiver) and not the other way around. The push off came after the defensive pass interference.
- Seattle drives down and completes a pass at the 1 yd line. Called back for holding. The replay shows no holding and Madden even said there was no hold. The play could have led to Seattle going ahead.
- Seattle throws an interception and on the return the quarterback tackles the man with the ball by hitting him below the waist. That is a legal tackle and blocking below the waist is only a penalty if the man does not have the ball. Add 15 yds to Pittsburgh giving them a shorter field.
The only legitimate score the Steelers had was the 75 yd run by Parker. Every other score came after a bad call.
Now, I do not like Pittsburgh though I did not care who won the game. If my team is not in it I couldn’t care less (I did not watch most of it but was called to the TV every time my son witnessed another injustice). They only thing that makes me happy about it is that Surfside is a rabid Pittsburgh fan and she deserves to see her team win the big one since it has been so long (10 years) since they won it. She will be happy for a while.
The reason I point this out is because the thug Porter made the statements that he did. I wonder if this over rated street thug will tell everyone that the referees wanted Pittsburgh to win so they cheated for them. I personally would like to believe that the referees are neutral and do the best they can but it almost appears they were all from Pennsylvania. It is more likely they are just inept but it sure makes one wonder, especially given Porter’s declaration that the referees cheat and can not be trusted. Maybe there should be an asterisk next to this one…