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Ed Hochuli: Let the Healing Begin, Already!

At the risk of prolonging the grousing over the officiating in the increasingly ancient Super Bowl XL: Sando reports on the brief remarks made by NFL referee Ed Hochuli, after the most respected zebra in the NFL paid his annual visit to Cheney to discuss new rules.

As you might expect, Hochuli defended the refs' performance in the Super Bowl:

(Hochuli) called the Darrell Jackson pass-interference call a "no-brainer" because "any time you have an extended arm and you have separation between the players, it's going to be an automatic flag for pass interference."

Said Ed: "The Super Bowl was one of those games where it seemed like the big calls went against Seattle. That was just fortuitous, bad fortuitous, for Seattle. That doesn't mean there were no mistakes, but it was a well-officiated game."

I agree with Hochuli that the least disputable call of the afternoon was the D-Jack pass interference penalty. I also agree that I'm tired of thinking, talking, screaming, and setting small brushfires over the Super Bowl officiating.

No tapes of the afternoon conference, but a sports station in Raleigh, NC has tapes of an interview they conducted with Hochuli earlier this year. He's a very thoughtful guy. I don't think they spoke about the Super Bowl (it's a longish segment), but Hochuli did have an amusing anecdote about the NFC Championship game, in which a fuming Holmgren was rendered temporarily dumbstruck.