Cloudy in Pittsburgh

Your judgement often gets clouded when things aren't going your way. In the worst game of my HS bball career, I almost decapitated my best friend after he got in my path towards a ref after another awful officiating call. So, I can almost understand Pittsburgh Steelers exec. Dan Rooney criticizing the officials after a loss to the Atlanta Falcons dropped them to 2-4. Almost.

Rooney has about as much right to complain about the officiating as Kevin Federline has to complain about his luck in life. The officials gift wrapped last year's super bowl for the Steelers. That game was far more important than any regular season game the mediocre Steelers will play this year. They've shown time and time again that this year's team isn't really a bona fide contender for the crown. Nevertheless, Rooney popped off after his Steelers lost again.

I'm fine with officials being called out. I don't think the league should fine coaches, execs and owners if they have a valid point. For instance, the Bengals complaining about the personal foul on the Justin Smith sack of Bruce Gradkowski a couple weeks back is totally legit. Even Scott Linehan, while he was wrong, had a better beef than Rooney when he complained about the illegal formation call at the end of the recent Seahawks-Rams game. From what I understand, Rooney had complaints about two calls: (1) a false start penalty resulting in a 10-second run-off and regulation expiring and (2) a tripping penalty on the kicker for tripping Atlanta return specialist Allen Rossum.

The false start penalty was the right call. There was a false start. The 10-second run-off rule was put into effect for just that kind of play. If he hadn't moved, they probably would have been flagged for a 5-yard illegal formation penalty for not having 7 players on the line of scrimmage - I figured he was moving up to avoid that call. This was an easy call and couldn't be made any other way. You can't just ignore a false start.

The second complaint by Rooney seems like a throw-in because he was pissed off and needed more than one offense to make his point. The officials are always going to blow one call, but if they blow two, that really killed our chances. Rooney couldn't just complain about the false start because, though that may have been his biggest complaint, he has no leg to stand on on that front. There is a little bit of wiggle room on the tripping call. People fall in different ways and it's entirely possible that the trip was not intentional. On the other hand, you'd have to be a die-hard Steelers fan to say that it was undoubtedly unintentional. The refs had to make a split second decision and I think they made a fair call.

Neither of the calls were bad enough to complain publicly about. This wasn't the refs blatantly giving the ball to the Falcons after they illegally touched - and didn't even recover - an onsides kick. One call was definitely correct, the other was marginal but only affected field position. The Falcons beat the Steelers. Pittsburgh is 2-4. Rooney should be irate, but not with the officials, with his team.