The "official" story of the Super Bowl

DETROIT — The wild ride on which these Seahawks took themselves and their fans has ended. It came to a screeching and almost sudden stop with their 21-10 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday in Super Bowl XL.

Monday, then, was a day for the fans to process and discuss what happened to their team, or in many cases, what happened with the officiating in the game.

The talk at Detroit Metro Airport among Seahawks fans who were in town for the Super Bowl was about the mistakes the Seahawks made.

Other hot topics: The play of tight end Jerramy Stevens, who dropped three passes and caught a touchdown; the loss of safety Marquand Manuel to injury and how much that affected the outcome; and, perhaps first and foremost, the calls against the Seahawks.

Coach Mike Holmgren addressed all of those subjects and more Monday in a short briefing with reporters before he and the Seahawks left the team hotel to head back to Seattle.

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"Penalties, as much as anything, were the story of the game, and that's unfortunate," Holmgren said. "It might be the first time I've said that in my entire life.

"It was very much an away game for us, but I thought our guys handled that part of it well. So yeah, it's hard, but there are a lot of things that happened this year that give the city of Seattle and our fans real hope. We're going to come back firing away next year."

Speaking to a gathering of about 15,000 fans Monday afternoon at Qwest Field, Holmgren took his thoughts on the officiating one step further.

"We knew it was going to be tough going against the Pittsburgh Steelers," he said. "I didn't know we were going to have to play the guys in the striped shirts as well."

Holmgren said he won't start looking ahead right away, though a few of his players couldn't wait to get the 2006 season started so they could forget the taste of defeat in the Super Bowl.

At least four calls in the game that went against Seattle were called into question. There was a pass interference on wide receiver Darrell Jackson that nullified a touchdown; a holding call on right tackle Sean Locklear with the Seahawks in the Steelers' red zone; a block-below-the-waist call on quarterback Matt Hasselbeck as he made a tackle after an interception; and the touchdown ruling on which it appeared Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was stopped short of the goal line on third down.

During the season, the Seahawks typically send in film of disputed plays and calls to the NFL officiating department for further review.

Calls to the league to inquire if the Seahawks did so on Monday were not returned.

"The unusual part of it is typically our team is not a very penalized team in general," Holmgren said. "And in the Super Bowl in general, they [officials] kind of let the guys play.

"But anything I say sounds like an excuse, and I don't want to do that, and I haven't seen the plays yet."

The play involving Hasselbeck, which added 15 yards to the end of the interception return, is one that Holmgren intends to bring up at the next NFL competition committee meetings this offseason.

Holmgren was also asked about the decided advantage the Steelers had in the stands at Ford Field. Pittsburgh fans vastly outnumbered Seahawks supporters in the crowd of 68,206.

"That part of it wasn't all that fair," Holmgren said. "Pittsburgh has wonderful fans ... but to sell the yellow towels on every row of the stadium, I'm sure there were a few non-Pittsburgh fans that were waving those things because they got the towel. And I didn't see too many green towels being sold. It was the first Super Bowl I have ever been involved with ... where it was that lopsided that way."

Despite the painful loss at the end, the Seahawks galvanized Seattle like they had never done before and had the city fervently behind them. That said, expect the bar to be raised and higher expectations of successful seasons to come with it now that the Seahawks have been to the big game.

"Once you get a little taste of it," Holmgren said, "you want to do it again."

José Miguel Romero: 206-464-2409 or jromero@seattletimes.com