XL vs XLIX

[jlwaters1]

I couldn't disagree more, Superbowl 40 was painful sure, But Seattle didn't play well and the Steelers deserved to win.

Pot is legal in Washington. Crack isn't.

Thank you for that intelligent, thoughtful response. Was it the refs that made S. Alexander a non factor in that game or for hasslbeck to lead d-jack too far on that big completion - that ended up incomplete because Jackson couldn't get both feet in bounds. Seattle didn't play well, to deny that fact is silly.

 

[Uncle Si]

I couldn't disagree more, Superbowl 40 was painful sure, But Seattle didn't play well and the Steelers deserved to win.

Pot is legal in Washington. Crack isn't.

Thank you for that intelligent, thoughtful response. Was it the refs that made S. Alexander a non factor in that game or for hasslbeck to lead d-jack too far on that big completion - that ended up incomplete because Jackson couldn't get both feet in bounds. Seattle didn't play well, to deny that fact is silly.

I don't buy into the narrative that the refs stole the game either. We weren't good enough on that day. The ref's didn't help our cause, but we struggled to make plays throughout.

I felt we were good enough to beat the Patriots right up until the very end. It came down to one play. We didn't make that play and it really sucks. Big difference for me.

I think the lasting legacy of 40 is because it was our first Super Bowl. Has it been our 2nd or 3rd I think the narrative is quite different.

 

[Hawks46]

The loss at XL* was NFL inflicted.

The loss at XLIX was self (Bevell) inflicted.

This sums it up nicely.

XLIX sucks because we basically gave that game away. Even that Pats players are coming out and saying it was a different outcome of we had run the ball.

XL was lost mostly due to things beyond our control. Sure, the Hawks made mistakes, but Pit played badly in that game and still game out looking like they crushed us, which is sad. I wasn't even sure I wanted to watch the NFL anymore if the outcome was predetermined.

I'm already looking forward to the draft this year and seeing how we can fill holes and how far we can go. Making the playoffs is a given, which is amazing as a Seahawk fan.

 

[3Rivershawk]

XLIX is far worse. We had a dominating lead in the second half only to give it away in the most excruciating fashion possible.

I for one do not blame the nfl, refs, aliens, or whoever else you want to blame for the SBXL loss. It was a combination if gutless play calling, mediocre defense, and every weapon on offense failing to show up that cost us that game.

That team was soft, and it showed.

 

[kearly]

At least with XLIX, the entire country acknowledged that Seattle was as good as, if not better, than New England. Patriots also played a good game in their own right. I felt like with XL, Pittsburgh played like crap and won, people barely acknowledged Seattle was even there, and the referee narrative was mostly dismissed outside of the northwest. I found the aftermath of XL to be pretty frustrating.

XL was the most cruel SB championship game experience I'm aware of. What a way to experience your first SB after waiting 30+ years. And the fact that the "Hawks got screwed" narrative of that game didn't endure as well as it should have makes it that much worse.

 

[kearly]

I couldn't disagree more, Superbowl 40 was painful sure, But Seattle didn't play well and the Steelers deserved to win. I don't want to hear about the refs. Yes, there was several bad calls, but those bad call didn't allow Trufant to get thoroughly beat on a reverse pass play, nor did the refs have anything to do with "fast Willey Parker" gashing us for a 70+ yard TD.

And those were the only two good plays they made. The Steelers sucked in that game, worse than Seattle did. But the breaks ALL went their way, and football is a sport where breaks often decide who wins.

 

[YYZHawksFan]

I agree with this view. I have a much more sour taste in my mouth for XL loss.

 

[AgentDib]

I didn't go to XL but was in the corner of the final endzone of XLIX so my view is slanted towards XLIX.

Objectively, I think XL should be the worst loss for most. The Hawks didn't play their best game but the Steelers were even worse; if you think they played well try looking up Big Ben's stats. He's a "super bowl winning" QB while Hass is not and it's ironic that Hawk fans are falling all over themselves lately to bring that up with Wilson when we have such recent evidence that it is team sport and not all about the QB.

What makes XL the worst is that it was our first Super Bowl and then just happened to be the first time in history that a team has won the turnover battle and total yards and then lost. And yet nobody talked about that, because it was a psuedo home game for the Steelers and the officiating favored the home crowd like it typically does across all sports. Combined with the media love for the Steelers and Bettis, a bunch of Hawk fans unfortunately interpreted this as some sort of conspiracy. So the bizzaro takeaway narrative was a homecoming parade for the Steelers winning the game they were supposed to win and a bunch of sore loser Hawk fans complaining about the officiating.

 

[crosfam]

for me - a fan for about 40 years, XL was worse. If 2005 Hawks play 2005 Pittsburgh 100 times, we win 85 of them. They wee a tough team but just not nearly as talented as we were. I thought we would win in a blowout. And if we played our game, we would have. The sequence where the refs took away the long pass to Stevens, then penalized a frustrated Matt H when he tried to tackle the interceptor, then we wee so frazzled we gave up a flea flicker touchdown which seemed so obvious form the living room. We should have scored at least 31 points. The white jersey trick jinxed us.

We would be 50-50 vs. the 2014 Pats, and at least it will go down as one of the 5 best SB games. I bet if Lynch took that in, he would be MVP and would have retired by now. Reminds me of the first Buffalo SB. They were better than the NYG team, but... did not happen.

At least we will be in white SB50 jersey's next year...

 

[NFSeahawks]

XL because of the controversy and it being our first time.

XLIX sucked in it's own right because it was like a clown tease, easier to overcome because we won it all last year and our future will provide us with at least another two superb owls.

 

[drdiags]

jwaters1, I don't think it was Trufant who got beat on the trick play, he just happened to be there after the pass was thrown, having raced over after the man he had covered was not part of the play. If you look at the replay you will see the play was opposite side of where he was playing. Not sure if it was Herndon or the young safety who got sucked up by the play.

As far as which Superbowl loss stung worse, I will go with XL. XLIX would have been a sweet victory, sealing Pete's and Wilson's legacy, at least locally if not nationally as special. The win would have had historic implications but you knew when Kearse dropped/was stripped of the ball in the 3rd that it probably was not in the cards. XL had me confused and bitter.

 

[RichNhansom]

I really don't get how any Seahawk fan can look at XL and brush it off as we didn't play good enough. Go watch 95% of the games in the history of the NFL and what you will see the first third of the game is pretty even. This more than any other sport is a game of momentum and that first part of the game is all about composure and establishing the way the game will go. Go watch the Carolina game in the NFCC. We didn't look dominant from the gate but by the 3rd quarter we were walking away with the win in a game that ended up looking like a curb stomping. The Seahawks were not going to be given the opportunity to establish dominance or gain momentum. That is/was blatantly obvious.

Ben had a QB rating of 22.3 at the end of the game. The Steelers didn't have a 1st down until midway through the 2nd quarter. One of the most penalized teams in the league had three penalties in the first quarter and zero the rest of the game while the LEAST penalized team in the league that year was penalized over 10 times. More than any other game all season long and the penalties were of the variety that didn't just kill drives. They were enormous game changers and field position changers and at the most critical of times and nearly all were phantom or iffy. Meanwhile the Steelers were running past the end of the play clock by several seconds on multiple occasions among other things with no calls.

That 70 yard Willie Parker TD. Does anyone believe for a half a second that if that had been Alexander there would have been no phantom holding call? How do you think this game would have played out if we were aloud to take a lead and force them into passing situations? This game was Ben's first super bowl and ot was obvious the stage was to big for him.

As for the pass that Matt supposedly over threw Jackson? Go back and watch it. It is one of the reasons I never liked Jackson. That pass was 100% perfect and Jackson simply made no attempt to get his left foot in bounds. He was always making bone headed plays like that. Never seeming to have his head in the game when you needed him most. There is a reason he flushed out of the NFL right after leaving Seattle.

Alexander wasn't a factor because we were never aloud to take a lead. Hasselbeck threw the ball nearly 50 times with one mistake and that mistake is just as likely on the receiver running the wrong route or at least him and Matt not being on the same page.

For me the first words out of my mouth after this last Super Bowl were well that sucks but at least they let us lose it this time.

Sorry but if they let the teams play like most super bowls, we get momentum and end up trashing them similar to the Carolina game.

When you say we made to many mistakes, how do you not look at the Steelers and say they made way more? The deciding factor in that game was not the teams on the field, it was the officiating and the world knew it. The problem is the NFL knew our fan base wasn't big enough to cause problems but I am confident they were surprised by the volume of the rest of the world.

4 years after the super bowl in mid June (heart of the off season) ESPN or NFL.com (don't remember who) ran a national poll asking what was the worst officiated event in the history of sports? Not just the NFL and SBXL was by far the winner of the poll with staggering results and that wasn't some poll put out in Seattle. It was national.

Bill Leavy publicly apologized several years after the fact and admitted he blew calls. When has that ever happened?

 

[Sports Hernia]

I really don't get how any Seahawk fan can look at XL and brush it off as we didn't play good enough. Go watch 95% of the games in the history of the NFL and what you will see the first third of the game is pretty even. This more than any other sport is a game of momentum and that first part of the game is all about composure and establishing the way the game will go. Go watch the Carolina game in the NFCC. We didn't look dominant from the gate but by the 3rd quarter we were walking away with the win in a game that ended up looking like a curb stomping. The Seahawks were not going to be given the opportunity to establish dominance or gain momentum. That is/was blatantly obvious.

Ben had a QB rating of 22.3 at the end of the game. The Steelers didn't have a 1st down until midway through the 2nd quarter. One of the most penalized teams in the league had three penalties in the first quarter and zero the rest of the game while the LEAST penalized team in the league that year was penalized over 10 times. More than any other game all season long and the penalties were of the variety that didn't just kill drives. They were enormous game changers and field position changers and at the most critical of times and nearly all were phantom or iffy. Meanwhile the Steelers were running past the end of the play clock by several seconds on multiple occasions among other things with no calls.

That 70 yard Willie Parker TD. Does anyone believe for a half a second that if that had been Alexander there would have been no phantom holding call? How do you think this game would have played out if we were aloud to take a lead and force them into passing situations? This game was Ben's first super bowl and ot was obvious the stage was to big for him.

As for the pass that Matt supposedly over threw Jackson? Go back and watch it. It is one of the reasons I never liked Jackson. That pass was 100% perfect and Jackson simply made no attempt to get his left foot in bounds. He was always making bone headed plays like that. Never seeming to have his head in the game when you needed him most. There is a reason he flushed out of the NFL right after leaving Seattle.

Alexander wasn't a factor because we were never aloud to take a lead. Hasselbeck threw the ball nearly 50 times with one mistake and that mistake is just as likely on the receiver running the wrong route or at least him and Matt not being on the same page.

For me the first words out of my mouth after this last Super Bowl were well that sucks but at least they let us lose it this time.

Sorry but if they let the teams play like most super bowls, we get momentum and end up trashing them similar to the Carolina game.

When you say we made to many mistakes, how do you not look at the Steelers and say they made way more? The deciding factor in that game was not the teams on the field, it was the officiating and the world knew it. The problem is the NFL knew our fan base wasn't big enough to cause problems but I am confident they were surprised by the volume of the rest of the world.

4 years after the super bowl in mid June (heart of the off season) ESPN or NFL.com (don't remember who) ran a national poll asking what was the worst officiated event in the history of sports? Not just the NFL and SBXL was by far the winner of the poll with staggering results and that wasn't some poll put out in Seattle. It was national.

Bill Leavy publicly apologized several years after the fact and admitted he blew calls. When has that ever happened?

BINGO and AMEN! Anyone who says Seattle didn't play good enough to win that game and Pissburgh did either has serious memory problems, is in serious denial, and or is just trying to be contrarian. The stats all point to that Seattle team being the better team that day, except the score and the one sided flag fest of Levy and company.

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

I really don't get how any Seahawk fan can look at XL and brush it off as we didn't play good enough. Go watch 95% of the games in the history of the NFL and what you will see the first third of the game is pretty even. This more than any other sport is a game of momentum and that first part of the game is all about composure and establishing the way the game will go. Go watch the Carolina game in the NFCC. We didn't look dominant from the gate but by the 3rd quarter we were walking away with the win in a game that ended up looking like a curb stomping. The Seahawks were not going to be given the opportunity to establish dominance or gain momentum. That is/was blatantly obvious.

Ben had a QB rating of 22.3 at the end of the game. The Steelers didn't have a 1st down until midway through the 2nd quarter. One of the most penalized teams in the league had three penalties in the first quarter and zero the rest of the game while the LEAST penalized team in the league that year was penalized over 10 times. More than any other game all season long and the penalties were of the variety that didn't just kill drives. They were enormous game changers and field position changers and at the most critical of times and nearly all were phantom or iffy. Meanwhile the Steelers were running past the end of the play clock by several seconds on multiple occasions among other things with no calls.

That 70 yard Willie Parker TD. Does anyone believe for a half a second that if that had been Alexander there would have been no phantom holding call? How do you think this game would have played out if we were aloud to take a lead and force them into passing situations? This game was Ben's first super bowl and ot was obvious the stage was to big for him.

As for the pass that Matt supposedly over threw Jackson? Go back and watch it. It is one of the reasons I never liked Jackson. That pass was 100% perfect and Jackson simply made no attempt to get his left foot in bounds. He was always making bone headed plays like that. Never seeming to have his head in the game when you needed him most. There is a reason he flushed out of the NFL right after leaving Seattle.

Alexander wasn't a factor because we were never aloud to take a lead. Hasselbeck threw the ball nearly 50 times with one mistake and that mistake is just as likely on the receiver running the wrong route or at least him and Matt not being on the same page.

For me the first words out of my mouth after this last Super Bowl were well that sucks but at least they let us lose it this time.

Sorry but if they let the teams play like most super bowls, we get momentum and end up trashing them similar to the Carolina game.

When you say we made to many mistakes, how do you not look at the Steelers and say they made way more? The deciding factor in that game was not the teams on the field, it was the officiating and the world knew it. The problem is the NFL knew our fan base wasn't big enough to cause problems but I am confident they were surprised by the volume of the rest of the world.

4 years after the super bowl in mid June (heart of the off season) ESPN or NFL.com (don't remember who) ran a national poll asking what was the worst officiated event in the history of sports? Not just the NFL and SBXL was by far the winner of the poll with staggering results and that wasn't some poll put out in Seattle. It was national.

Bill Leavy publicly apologized several years after the fact and admitted he blew calls. When has that ever happened?

BINGO and AMEN! Anyone who says Seattle didn't play good enough to win that game and Pissburgh did either has serious memory problems, is in serious denial, and or is just trying to be contrarian. The stats all point to that Seattle team being the better team that day, except the score and the one sided flag fest of Levy and company.

Ditto for me too. To lose one fair and square, fine. To have it stolen, not OK.

 

[jlwaters1]

I really don't get how any Seahawk fan can look at XL and brush it off as we didn't play good enough. Go watch 95% of the games in the history of the NFL and what you will see the first third of the game is pretty even. This more than any other sport is a game of momentum and that first part of the game is all about composure and establishing the way the game will go. Go watch the Carolina game in the NFCC. We didn't look dominant from the gate but by the 3rd quarter we were walking away with the win in a game that ended up looking like a curb stomping. The Seahawks were not going to be given the opportunity to establish dominance or gain momentum. That is/was blatantly obvious.

Ben had a QB rating of 22.3 at the end of the game. The Steelers didn't have a 1st down until midway through the 2nd quarter. One of the most penalized teams in the league had three penalties in the first quarter and zero the rest of the game while the LEAST penalized team in the league that year was penalized over 10 times. More than any other game all season long and the penalties were of the variety that didn't just kill drives. They were enormous game changers and field position changers and at the most critical of times and nearly all were phantom or iffy. Meanwhile the Steelers were running past the end of the play clock by several seconds on multiple occasions among other things with no calls.

That 70 yard Willie Parker TD. Does anyone believe for a half a second that if that had been Alexander there would have been no phantom holding call? How do you think this game would have played out if we were aloud to take a lead and force them into passing situations? This game was Ben's first super bowl and ot was obvious the stage was to big for him.

As for the pass that Matt supposedly over threw Jackson? Go back and watch it. It is one of the reasons I never liked Jackson. That pass was 100% perfect and Jackson simply made no attempt to get his left foot in bounds. He was always making bone headed plays like that. Never seeming to have his head in the game when you needed him most. There is a reason he flushed out of the NFL right after leaving Seattle.

Alexander wasn't a factor because we were never aloud to take a lead. Hasselbeck threw the ball nearly 50 times with one mistake and that mistake is just as likely on the receiver running the wrong route or at least him and Matt not being on the same page.

For me the first words out of my mouth after this last Super Bowl were well that sucks but at least they let us lose it this time.

Sorry but if they let the teams play like most super bowls, we get momentum and end up trashing them similar to the Carolina game.

When you say we made to many mistakes, how do you not look at the Steelers and say they made way more? The deciding factor in that game was not the teams on the field, it was the officiating and the world knew it. The problem is the NFL knew our fan base wasn't big enough to cause problems but I am confident they were surprised by the volume of the rest of the world.

4 years after the super bowl in mid June (heart of the off season) ESPN or NFL.com (don't remember who) ran a national poll asking what was the worst officiated event in the history of sports? Not just the NFL and SBXL was by far the winner of the poll with staggering results and that wasn't some poll put out in Seattle. It was national.

Bill Leavy publicly apologized several years after the fact and admitted he blew calls. When has that ever happened?

BINGO and AMEN! Anyone who says Seattle didn't play good enough to win that game and Pissburgh did either has serious memory problems, is in serious denial, and or is just trying to be contrarian. The stats all point to that Seattle team being the better team that day, except the score and the one sided flag fest of Levy and company.

Ditto for me too. To lose one fair and square, fine. To have it stolen, not OK.

I respectfully will have to disagree, I get the anguish, I just don't understand perpetual torment that game has on so many Seahawks fans, I've gotten over it. We scored 10 points for Pete's Sake, (The D-Jack push off was ticky-tacky but he did extend his arm). They had 2 HUGE plays that scored 14 points, and both were bad defensive plays, there's no getting around those mistakes. The 2012-2014 Seahawks stop both of those plays. Now, one can argue and I'd agree the only reason the trick play was called was because of the asinine "illegal block" penalty on Hasslebeck after the INT (which he's making a tackle no less), gave them superb field position. The 2005 Seahawks were a good team they weren't a great team. The 2012- 2014 Seahawks teams would have wiped the floor with the 2005 IMO. Again, respectfully disagree, but I know I'm in the minority and will admit fully that I've only been a Seahawks fan since they became a NFC team-- I despise the AFC and had no interest in them until then.

 

[PackerNation]

Same here.. XL ripped my heart out.. XLIX was more palatable because NE actually played great unlike PIT who made 3-4 plays the entire game and won.

Yea, sounds like the NFCCG, except it was the Seahawks making those 3-4 plays.