The Seattle Seahawks, the #1 seed in the NFC, should thank incompetent referee Gene Steratore for ensuring they'd advance to the Super Bowl.
In a season where officials have made numerous mistakes on the field, none were more glaring than in the 2nd half of Sunday's NFC title game between Seattle & San Francisco, a rubber match, if you will, since the two division rivals had split their season series in the NFC West. While most figured Seattle would win, based largely on their stellar defense and the deafening "12th Man" (their fans), no one would've expected Steratore to screw up as royally as he did.
In the 3rd quarter, San Francisco is forced to punt. A Seattle defender, knocked aside, lands on the left (plant) leg of 49ers punter Andy Lee. Seattle is flagged for "running into the kicker", but San Francisco coach Jim Harbaugh declines to accept the penalty, which would have only been 5 yards, and let Seattle have the ball. As it turned out, that was a fatal mistake by Harbaugh, but that ain't the story.
Mike Perieira, a former NFL supervisor of officials who now is the officiating analyst for the Fox networks, was asked by Joe Buck about the call, and Periera said that Steratore got it wrong. It should've been "roughing the kicker", a personal foul worth 15 yards, with possession going back to San Francisco. For Niners fans, the worst was yet to come.
In the 4th quarter, Seattle's Jermaine Kearse, who'd scored the game winning touchdown earlier, lost the ball shy of the end zone. San Francisco's Navarro Bowman recovers, but is injured on the play in the ensuing scrum. Replays showed Bowman clearly had possession, but Steratore and his cast of idiots gave the ball to Seattle, which lost the ball on downs on the very next play. The call was not subject to review, although that could change during off-season league meetings in light of this debacle. Later in the quarter, when it looked like they had reached the 2:00 warning, Fox, of course, went to commercial, but had to jump back in, and Buck told the audience that Steratore added 1 second on the clock. San Francisco picked up a first down, so we had another 2:00 warning---at 1:53 left in the game. Was Steratore trying to make good for the Niners? I doubt it. I wonder sometimes how idiots like him are still employed by the league.
Thus, it is for the 2nd time that we bestow a Dunce Cap on Steratore for his egregious stupidity. Niners fans rightfully would be crying foul on the two blown calls, but the system that enables morons like Steratore to work post-season games despite similarly baffling mistakes during the regular season needs work. Upon further review, Steratore should be going back to school.
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