All Apologies

Last night, the AP reported that the Seattle Seahawks received an apology from the NFL regarding both of the TDs the Giants scored on Sunday.The story broke late in the evening, and was picked up by most media outlets, including ESPN.

Late this afternoon, the league office denied that their officiating office had a conversation with Holmgren, and denied making such apologies, and ESPN's Chris Mortensen is reporting that the league is investigating Mike Holmgren for divulging confidential information, and he could face a fine for doing so.

Ok, so the league office is denying that a conversation took place, but are investigating whether or not to fine Holmgren for discussing confidential information? How could he divulge anything, if a conversation never took place?

What the league office really needs to do is evaluate what Mike Holmgren actually said. I listened to the press conference, and aside from saying that he spoke to the league (never indicated who at the league he spoke to), and saying that "mistakes were made", Holmgren never mentioned that the league apologized to the Seattle organization for anything.

Holmgren even said that he thought the catch made by Amani Toomer was a great catch that he wished his team covered better, so why would Holmgren state that the league apologized for a play that Holmgren possibly didn't even submit for review (since he thought it was legit)?

Now, the Jeremy Shockey one is a play that Holmgren still didn't think was a catch. And since I have two functioning eyes, neither did I. But Larry Nemmers reportedly didn't have conclusive evidence to overturn the call on the field.

It's possible that someone say a different review that showed more clearly that Shockey's left foot never touched the ground before he was "jacked up" by Marquand Manuel, freeing the ball from Shockey's grasp. But Holmgren never claimed to have received an apology from the league office regarding that play, in particular. In fact, the word "apology" doesn't appear once in the entire transcript of Mike Holmgren's press conference.

So why did the AP report that Holmgren received one? Who knows?
Why didn't ESPN, FOX, Yahoo or CBS (which also powers NFL.com) ever bother to dig any deeper into this story? You'd have to ask them.

This is all meaningless, since the Seahawks still won the game. But let's play Devil's Advocate for a minute.

Let's assume that Larry Nemmers ruled that Shockey didn't maintain possession long enough for that to be ruled a completion. Since it was a 3rd down play, the Giants kick a field goal and trail at the half, 7-6.

If the game were to progress in the same manner, and Seattle led the Giants 14-9 with 4:44 to play in the game, does Mike Holmgren go for it on 4th and inches, or does he play it safe and kick the field goal to give the Seahawks a 17-9 lead? Holmgren would likely play it safe, even though a TD would've done more to seal the game for the 'Hawks.

Assuming that Amani Toomer did get both feet in bounds, the game would still head into overtime, Jay Feely still misses three potential game-winning kicks, and Jeremy Shockey and Michael Strahan still look stupid for celebrating early.