While folks in Seattle still might be unhappy with the Super Bowl XL officials, former Seattle Seahawks QB Matt Hasselbeck isn’t. Hasselbeck was Seattle’s starting quarterback when they lost 21-10 to Pittsburgh, and while he had some legitimate gripes about how the NFL assigns officials, he said it’s not their fault the Seahawks lost to the Steelers.
“A lot of things have come out of that for me, number one, I won’t ever blame officiating,” Hasselbeck said on the Go Long podcast with Tyler Dunne. He did question the NFL putting officials from different crews together for a Super Bowl, making them work together for the first time all season in the sport’s biggest game, which is a completely fair criticism. Hasselbeck likened officials to a team, and said that when they’re taken from that team it’s just a group of individuals working together which as a collective, makes them weaker.
“It’s why a Super Bowl team will always beat a Pro Bowl team,” he said.
But he doesn’t think the refs are why Seattle lost to Pittsburgh.
“I think we over-tried, if that even makes sense. We over-tried in that Super Bowl. I didn’t fully understand it until Pete Carroll became my coach in 2010. I don’t know, maybe other coaches have said, but he said it in a way where I was like, oh my gosh, that’s what we did. We tried too hard.”
There were a number of questionable calls in Super Bowl XL that favored Pittsburgh, to the point where official Bill Leavy came out and said he “kicked two calls” in the game. But at the end of the day, the Steelers were the better team on the field. None of the penalties were bad enough that they completely took Seattle out of the game, and Pittsburgh’s stifling defense just got the better of the Seahawks, bailing out a second-year quarterback in Ben Roethlisberger who was just 9-21 for 123 yards and two interceptions in the game.
RB Willie Parker had 10 carries for 93 yards in the win, while wide receiver and former college quarterback Antwaan Randle-El threw a 43-yard touchdown pass to WR Hines Ward, who won Super Bowl MVP.
Roethlisberger had one of the worst performances by a quarterback in Super Bowl history, and Pittsburgh still found a way to win. It wasn’t because of the refs, and as much as Seahawks fans want to blame the guys in the stripes, their own quarterback said it was the fault of the team. That should be all anyone needs to hear to put the argument to bed.
You can watch the full segment with Hasselbeck below:
