Wow, as a giants fan this is good news but it has come a little to late for it to do any good. The NFL has admitted that the refs botched the final call (http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs02/s/2003/0106/1487933.html) and the ball should of probably ended up on the 1 yard line. :hmm:

Bummer!

It was crap, BUT the refs had nothing to do with that brilliant comeback that the Niners pulled off. Great for them. Too bad. I wanted a Giants/Steelers Bowl. Guess I'll Take a PA brawl and settle for Philly.

The Refs also made a crappy call in the Green Bay loss on that Punt. Oh the humanity.

Originally posted by WildFire444
Wow, as a giants fan this is good news but it has come a little to late for it to do any good. The NFL has admitted that the refs botched the final call (http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs02/s/2003/0106/1487933.html) and the ball should of probably ended up on the 1 yard line. :hmm:

Actually they should have got one more play at the original line of scrimmage. If they would have called the pass interferance, there would have been offsetting penalties and the down would have been replayed (even though there was no time left on the clock).

Originally posted by WildFire444
Wow, as a giants fan this is good news but it has come a little to late for it to do any good. The NFL has admitted that the refs botched the final call (http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs02/s/2003/0106/1487933.html) and the ball should of probably ended up on the 1 yard line. :hmm:

As a giant fan this does me NO good except to piss me off more than I was...Anyway what happened was the pass interference you saw was not the pass interference that should have been called...That lineman was an ineligable reciever so it was a good call on the refs part...however another lineman had been designated as an eligable reciever (which happens everygame in the event of a botched field goal someone can go downfield to as a reciever) and he was held up as the play was progressing...this is the call the ref should have made...bastards :mad: So since a game can not end on offsetting penalties the Giants should have gotten another try at the original line of scrimmage.

I am a giant fan too, but c'mon if the other team scores 17 unanswered points in the fourth quarter alone do the giants really deserve to be in the super bowl? Not only that but the next round of the playoffs?

A win is a win is a win...You can't expect in an NFL playoff game against a high potent offense to easily hold on to a 17 point lead...However it could be said that the 49ers don't deserve to go either for being in such a huge deficet...the team that wins deserves to go no matter how they do it. According to the RULES the Giants should have gotten another chance to kick the field goal but oh well...it isn't the first time that a bad call decided a game. So to answer your question directly YES the Giants are good enough to represent the NFC in the superbowl, but is their any really dominate team in the NFL?

The Bengals dominate last place, consistantly

Originally posted by gr8ful wes

The Refs also made a crappy call in the Green Bay loss on that Punt. Oh the humanity.
Wouldn't have mattered anyway with how bad Atlanta smoked them.

lol, yeah the bengals are the only constant in the NFL :)

Originally posted by WildFire444
Wow, as a giants fan this is good news but it has come a little to late for it to do any good. The NFL has admitted that the refs botched the final call (http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs02/s/2003/0106/1487933.html) and the ball should of probably ended up on the 1 yard line. :hmm:

Wouldn't have mattered, the Giants long-snapper would have messed up again anyway... ;)

Referee's are humans and they make mistakes like any other human being does. Accept it, there's nothing you can do about it...

The joke is the long-snapper was signed only the week before because the giants were unsatisfied with the performance of thier previous one. :lol:

You can find him making observations on the poorness of the other snappers prior to the signing here:

http://www.nfl.com/teams/story/NYG/6091605

I am still curious as to why the holder (a backup QB) didn't just spike the ball or throw it away....that's why they kicked on 3rd down....just in case....

Originally posted by jiml_63
I am still curious as to why the holder (a backup QB) didn't just spike the ball or throw it away....that's why they kicked on 3rd down....just in case....

You can only spike if you take the snap from under center and are in the pocket, otherwise it's intentional grounding - 10yd Penalty ad loss of down.

He could have thrown it out of bounds... would have stopped the clock (he rolled out of the pocket so it wouldn't have been grounding)

Yeah... blame it all on the refs. The Bears collect league apologizes all the time, deal with it. The Giants gagged. They were the ones that blew a big lead and allowed the officials to come into play. They just choked, pure and simple.

Like Bear Bryant use to say, don't give a team a excuse for losing a game.

The point is, the refs screwed up. They even admitted. Like somebody before said, a win is a win is a win (I'm not even a Giants fan, infact,I despise them :D )

My "favorite" ref screw up was in a Bears/Packers game. Instant replay was in it's first "trial" year. The Green Bay QB threw a game winning touchdown pass in the closing seconds of the game, and it was obvious to everybody in the stadium that he was beyond the line of scrimage when he threw the ball. The Bears challanged the play... The TV announcers were all saying how it shouldn't take them more than a second to see that indeed he was past the line of scrimage. After a long delay, the officials upheld the play... Bears Lose.

The league apologized the next day... but ever since then, the Bears have voted against instant replay.

My "favorite" ref screw up was in the 2000(?) Stanley Cup Finals in Game 7 when Bret Hull "scored" the game winning goal in overtime. Turns out, that the goal shouldnt of counted because it went through the side of the net, but the officials didnt realize it at the time.

Well, all refs make mistakes. It just depends on the calibur of the game whether anybody cares about it or not. In this case it was the playoffs, and, therefore, it is noticed more.

My favorite screw up was the Thanksgiving game between Pittsburgh and Detroit, when the damn ref couldn't even do the coin toss right.

What surprises me the most is the leagues's reaction to the incident. All they did was to give new assignments to the refson FG's? Come on, what's that? You'd think they would have reacted strngly to such a blatant mistake.

Cap'n Jimbo - the league has never invented new rules and standards mid-playoffs before - that was an amazingly strong reaction. All rules changes in the past have waited for after the season for the rules committee to decide. I think it's great to see a sport with a strong commissioner taking charge.