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AFC: R 77 Terry McAulay U 70 Scott Dawson HL 74 Derick Bowers LJ 84 Mark Steinkerchner FJ 82 Buddy Horton SJ 4 Doug Toole BJ 61 Keith Ferguson NFC: R 85 Ed Hochuli U 124 Carl Paganelli HL 24 Tom Stabile LJ 18 Byron Boston FJ 114 Gene Steratore SJ 51 Carl Cheffers BJ 133 Steve Freeman The NFC has a solid crew, should be a well officiated game... lots of vets there and Steratore's an excellent FJ for a young official. AFC has a lot of newcomers so their performance should be interesting to watch.

"Moving Forward" doesn't literally mean forward. It just means that you've got to be intentionally making progress, left, right, north, or south. Direction doesn't matter. IMO, it was clear in this case that the rolling wasn't an intentional movement, it was still part of the act of the catch.

From what I understand Morelli's crew was one of the higher-ranked crews. Triplette (NE/DEN) and Winter (SEA/WAS) had the crews who snuck in. Interestingly enough from what I saw Winter's crew had the best weekend out of the four crews. Hochuli is pretty much a lock for next week, but my guess is that either McAulay (75-80% shot) or Kukar (20-25%) is going to get the other game so fasten your seatbelts.

And I forgot to add... where's the explanation about that abysmal handling of the false start debacle? If the LJ and HL didn't catch the offense moving it was a defensive delay of game for making an unnatural football movement. That imo was the biggest officiating blunder in this game.

This is a very interesting response by the NFL. Everyone that I have talked to who officiates says Morelli's call was correct under NFL rules. Heck, even Mike and the Maddog said it was the right call. Until he gets up he's still in the act of catching the ball unless he starts moving forward. Under NCAA rules he'd have been down by contact since his knees were on the ground. Greg Aiello said earlier it was a judgement call but I guess Pereira disagrees - you'd think they'd get on the same page before coming out with statements.

No, it wasn't the wrong call. No football move was made - rolling over without getting up is not a football move. Here's a similar situation: what if a receiver catches the ball, gets both feet in bounds right along the line, but then as he falls to the ground out of bounds, loses the ball. Is it a catch? No, it isn't. Same situation here. Polamalu was in the act of catching the ball as he rolled over. If he had gotten his knees off the ground, that'd have qualified as a football move, but he didn't do it. Therefore, the call was correct. I agree that whole false start/offside situation was ridiculous, but the interception was spot-on.

BTW, just so you all know, the interception call in Indianapolis was correct. While it appeared to be caught, it wasn't because the receiver was not down by contact, i.e. no Colts player touched him. When you're a receiver (either offensive or defensive) and you're in this situation you can either lie there and get touched (while maintaining possession 100% of that time) OR get your butt, knees, elbows, etc OFF THE GROUND (i.e. every part of your body that would rule the ball dead if it's touching the ground and you've been touched) while keeping possession 100% of the time until all of those body parts are off the ground. The "football act" in this situation is getting off the ground. Morelli made the correct call. Of course you wouldn't know that because TV announcers don't know the game as well as they should.

There's a reason why the officiating is as bad as it is. The officials union got upset over last year's assignments because the system called for the top three officials at each position (R, U, LJ, HL, FJ, BJ, SJ) to get TWO playoff games (WC/Divisional and CC/SB). This meant that around 60% of the officials didn't get playoff assignments because the higher rating officials had more games. This year, the Conference Championship games are NOT being officiated by officials who already got assignments. These new crews doing the CC games are still ranked either 2 or 3 at their position. Therefore 14 extra officials get playoff assignments that wouldn't have normally gotten them under the 2004 system. This has led to very questionable crews (Triplette and Winter come to mind) getting assignments that they really don't deserve. FWIW, look for Terry McAulay and Ed Hochuli to be wearing white hats next weekend with Mike Carey (who was in the WC round) in the SB.

Too bad for the Pats... Coleman's crew will be in CHI Sunday.

The truth of the matter is that Haslett is far more similar to Rich Kotite than Bill Belichick. BB was a coordinator IN THE SAME DIVISION AND CONFERENCE before he was HC of NE. Further, this extra time was under Parcells. OTOH, Haslett has had 2 weeks since he's been canned by the Saints when he quit on his team and they quit on him. Further, he has no coaching pedigree whatsoever - I'd hardly call the Cowher pedigree something I'd put on my resume. His drafts have been horrid. Quite honestly he has no more qualifications to be a HC than did Meathead. I support the removal of Mularkey but there are far more palatable candidates out there that have proven themselves to be winners, including Mike Sherman and Jim Fassel.

I can understand the Levy hiring but this supposed love-affair with Haslett is horses#it. At least Levy's a HOFer. Regardless of the circumstances, what owner/GM in their right mind hires a coach who asked out of his job, finished 3-13 as a HC just this past season, and has no coaching pedigree whatsoever (unlike BB's situation with Cleveland/NE)? I for one will be furious if Haslett gets the job because he has no chance of succeeding.

How can anyone possibly support Haslett as HC? You really want someone who accused Hull of steroid use as the face of our franchise? You want someone who hasn't had a lick of success during his tenure as HC with the exception of his first season? I guess fans don't remember how successful Rich Kotite's second try at head coaching was with a Jets team whose talent is about on par with ours...

Regular Season != Playoffs.

You may be right. Anderson's crew is doing this game and they have a reputation of being flag-happy.

Meathead shouldn't be anywhere near JP...

I think we all know that it's Marv with Ralph's freudian slip.

Ralph is reassuming the presidency...

Wow... Good for Ralph!!!

Interesting slip by Ralph....

Dammit not again!!!!

The Wayback machine says he hasn't had a link since the website has been that way.

Donahoe was once a salesman for the inferior Cheese Nips.

Coach Chuck Dickerson!!!!

Everybody knows that since Son of Satan has left that our unis will be restored, JP will be the next Jimbo, and Marv will hire Tedy Bruschi to be our new one-man defense.

YAY!!!!!