San Diego Chargers: Seattle Seahawks Can’t Take The Heat, Even With Help From Officials
Super Bowl champions Seattle Seahawks continued their dominating ways in week 1 of NFL action, spanking the seemingly hopeless Green Bay Packers 36-16. But that was on their cozy home field in Seattle, where their incredibly loud stadium makes it all but impossible for opposing teams to function. So how would they fare in Week 2, traveling down the coast to San Diego just in time for a 100-degree Southern California heat wave?
Not well, as it turns out.
The San Diego Chargers didn’t seem at all intimidated by the brash, high and mighty Seahawks coming into their Qualcomm Stadium yard. Both the Charger’s offense, lead by quarterback Philip Rivers, and the San Diego defense, which came out hard, kept Pete Carroll’s champion Seahawks on their heals.
Philip Rivers connected with an unstoppable Antonio Gates for three San Diego touchdowns, and San Diego kicker, Nick Novak, split the uprights three times for an additional nine points. The Chargers triumphed over Seattle 30-21, and handed the Seahawks their fist loss since a meaningless week 16 defeat to the Arizona Cardinals.
Rivers and Gates hooked up twice in the first half for touchdowns, the duo connecting for 8-yard and 21-yard Chargers scores. Rivers finished 28 of 37 for the day for 284 San Diego yards. Antonio Gates was on the receiving end of seven of those passes, which gained 96 yards for San Diego.
Novak, meanwhile, seemed cold as ice despite the brutal heat, hitting field goals for San Diego from 50, 43 and 28 yards out.
The game wasn’t without controversy, however, the Chargers’ dominance of the Seahawks requiring resilience, grit, and overcoming some questionable officiating that was sometimes as brutal as the heat.
Of course, the Seahawks didn’t seem like they’d need any help during their visit to San Diego, where they were heavily favored to continue their winning ways. So when Seattle’s Percy Harvin took off down the field, leaving Charger defenders in his wake but also clearly stepping out of bounds long before reaching the end zone, Chargers’ fans and the Chargers’ sideline went ballistic when the play resulted in a 51-yard touchdown anyway.
USA Today Sports reports that neither play-by-play announcer noticed it until after seeing the replay, but for all who viewed the play, Harvin had definitely walked the tightrope on the sideline between the green field and the white out of bounds territory. A referee was also well within viewing range of Harvin’s feet that a replay later revealed were clearly out of bounds. Did his failure to call for a review lead to the Seattle touchdown’s standing?
Pete Carroll and his Seattle team might’ve been aware of the run being potentially called back because they hustled their extra-point unit onto the field and quickly kicked the point after. At that point, no review of Percy’s run could lead to taking the points off the board and the touchdown stood.
It was around this time that the broadcast of the game returned from a commercial while there was a time-out following the touchdown, and Thom Brennaman and David Diehl had had a chance to take a look at the replay with Harvin clearly stepping out of bounds.
Mike Periera, NFL on Fox rules analyst, gave his opinion on the seemingly bogus touchdown via Twitter:
Percy Harvin's TD should have been overturned.@MikePereira on what appeared to go wrong during the review process:https://t.co/xMTLcn77qn
— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) September 14, 2014
“This play had to get stopped,” Periera also said. “This is the first breakdown I’ve seen of this new system where New York is a part of it.”
Regardless, that questionable touchdown was soon overcome by the San Diego Chargers. The Seattle Seahawks, licking their wounds, were probably glad to get back to their cooler coastal Washington environs.
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