Long before Jeffrey Dean Morgan became a household name for his role in the hit series, The Walking Dead, he was a diehard Seattle Seahawks fan. And that hasn’t changed.
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A proud product of Seattle, Morgan has repped the franchise on social media, and in stadiums, and even raised the iconic 12 Flag ahead of a 2018 game against the San Francisco 49ers. Needless to say, the highs and the lows of the team over the years have touched him at quite a personal level.
And, if there’s one moment in Seahawks history that still stings for him, it’s the team’s loss in Super Bowl XL to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2006. And nearly two decades later, Morgan hasn’t forgiven or forgotten how Seattle’s infamous 21-10 loss to the Steelers went down.
“It was horrible,” said Morgan on Cam Heyward’s Not Just Football podcast. “I thought the whole game was officiated poorly, but there were two calls in particular that sucked.”
While Morgan didn’t specify which particular calls bothered him the most, he was adamant that poor officiating impacted the outcome of the contest.
“There were probably 10 of us there from Seattle,” recalled the Hollywood star. “We were looking at each other, going, ‘This is a joke. There’s no way.’ And then it was like, ‘Who’s getting paid off?’”
Morgan also clarified that his frustration wasn’t rooted in blind loyalty to his team. He admitted, “I’ve always been a fan of Big Ben [Ben Roethlisberger]. I was really excited for that Super Bowl.”
But the game didn’t live up to the hype for Morgan. “It wasn’t a great Super Bowl, unless you’re a Pittsburgh fan. [It] wasn’t a well-played game by anyone. I just remember the refs were too involved,” he said.
Hearing his guest’s strong resentment toward how things played out, Heyward, the Steelers’ representative in the room, attempted to lighten the moment with a tongue-in-cheek reply: “I thought it was a well-officiated game.”
The Walking Dead star, as expected, wasn’t having any of it: “No, you don’t. No, you don’t.” When you think of it, Morgan’s frustration isn’t unfounded.
Super Bowl XL remains one of the most controversial big games in NFL history. For starters, a Darrell Jackson touchdown was wiped out by a questionable offensive pass interference.
Then, a game-shifting 18-yard Hasselbeck completion to Jerramy Stevens was erased by a holding flag on Sean Locklear. That call pushed Seattle from the 1-yard line back to the 29.
Perhaps the biggest proof of this matchup being an officiating disaster came years later, when referee Bill Leavy admitted to the mistakes he had committed.
“It was a tough thing for me. I kicked two calls in the fourth quarter, and I impacted the game, and as an official, you never want to do that… It left me with a lot of sleepless nights. I think about it constantly. I’ll go to my grave wishing that I’d been better. I know that I did my best at that time, but it wasn’t good enough,” confessed Leavy.
For Seahawks fans, those words offer little comfort. As evident from Morgan’s words, the sour taste of losing a Super Bowl still hasn’t gone away.
After all, losses sting hard when the nature of the defeat is disappointing. And to see the most important game of the year get affected by external factors is heartbreaking for any sports fan.
