Dropped balls, missed throws mar Seattle's Super Bowl showing
Feb. 5, 2006
CBS SportsLine.com wire reports




DETROIT -- Matt Hasselbeck angrily unsnapped his chin strap with a hard flick of his right wrist. Steelers linebacker Joey Porter then added to his anger by taunting Hasselbeck from behind.

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Seconds earlier, the Seahawks quarterback's wrist had flicked something worse -- perhaps the worst throw of his Pro Bowl season.

A woefully overthrown pass far beyond Darrell Jackson's arms landed in Ike Taylor's near the Pittsburgh 15, killing Seattle's chance to take the lead in the fourth quarter of Sunday's Super Bowl.

But that wasn't the Seahawks' only lost opportunity in their 21-10 loss to the Steelers. It just happened to be the last one.

"It got to the point where I was taking chances -- and that was a chance I shouldn't have taken," Hasselbeck said.

The Seahawks' wondrous, record-setting season ended somewhere beneath an avalanche of mistakes and missed opportunities.

"I told them, they've played better before than they played today," coach Mike Holmgren said outside the Seahawks' locker room, after he lost his second Super Bowl in three tries as a head coach.

"We did some things that were uncharacteristic of us," he said.

Such as four crucial penalties. Two missed field goals by Josh Brown. Three dropped passes, all by tight end Jerramy Stevens -- the co-creator of last week's only controversy with Porter. A catch on the goal line with only one foot inbounds. Two calls by the officials that Seattle will be debating all winter, spring and summer.

That mess directly resulted in 18 lost points -- including a disputed Steelers touchdown -- two lost first downs, 176 lost yards.

And one, bitterly lost Super Bowl.

"We could have dominated the game," said Seahawks linebacker D.D. Lewis, involved in the play that Seattle fans will steam about for weeks to come.

"I really believe we out-physicalled them."

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