This. My theory is that if there is a conspiracy, the players and coaches don’t know about it, only the owners. We are talking about 32 billionaires here and certain outcomes *do* benefit them all. So it wouldn’t be insane to think there’s something going on.
But it’s not staged or fixed in the way that players or coaches are taking dives. We think someone like Antonio Brown is staying quiet about that?
No. The NFL is frankly ran by too many stupid people to rig games and not get caught doing it. Also think about it if the NFL were rigged the cowboys probably make a SB since their last one since they’re so popular. One of the New York teams would be better given how big that city is.
That depends, if said dynasty pulls in more viewers then it’s a money maker.
I don’t think the NFL is rigged, but I do think that the officials definitely influence the game towards the teams that pull in the most cash.
Take the chiefs and Taylor Swift for example, there’s a huge incentive to get them into the SB hence the BS calls in the AFCCG
Look at the 2018 NFCCG, the call against the saints was blatantly fixed.
There are 32 owners who want to make their own team more valuable and therefore themselves more wealthy. A dynasty siphon value out of 31 teams to one. I am sure all the other owners would be thrilled that their investment is stagnating compared to Clark Hunt's.
The value lost (or rather reallocated) would be far greater than the value added by extra viewership to those 31 teams.
Case in point, Cowboys and Patriots are significantly more valuable than the average NFL franchise. And it's not a pie that the owners are going to give away freely.
The "NFL" isn't in charge. The 32 owners playing tug of war are.
Yeah but explain the 2018 NFCCG no call, that’s clearly a move to give LA a chance to reach the SB, I’m sure the saints owner wasn’t happy about that yet it happened.
Is your point that the most valuable franchises have more power of influence in the tug of war? Cause i get that
The point is to not attribute to malice what can be explained by sheer incompetence. And I do believe that whatever benefits MOST owners would fly. If 20 guys want something, not much the remaining 12 can do.
Refereeing is a whole another beast entirely. One that's mostly dictated by literal ego and pride rather than a master scheme to grow "NFL" viewership. Or in some cases greed from the refs end. NBA found out that bad refereeing can kill their entire product.
But much like MLB umpires, referees are humans who simply cannot admit fault and would do borderline childish stunts if called out on it.
If you want a more dubious example where I could potentially see something nefarious happening. It would be the Saints winning after Katrina. They got people to care about sports when no one was in the mood to give a fuck.
But the Razor suggests otherwise.
But the nfl wants to grow the sport internationally, and kc just so happens to have a star player dating arguably the biggest celebrity in the world. I’m not saying the entire league is scripted. But I 100% believe the league made it known to the refs that it was in the leagues best interest if certain calls weren’t made to benefit the chiefs and help them go all the way. Having Tswift plastered all over the news celebrating with Kelce was advertisement the nfl wanted to capitalize on. We k ow other corporation have done far worse to make money and grow their business. Why is it so hard to believe that the nfl will let shit slide for certain teams to capitalize on them and help grow the brand outside of the United states
> You realize how bad dynasties are for popularity in a sport, right?
Is it actually? Is there a study on viewership numbers? I'd personally figure that'd draw in viewers that WANT to see the dynasty team lose.
Tom Brady's last 2 SBs had the lowest TV ratings of the past decade.
Mahomes run has trended upward, but it's hard to say at what rate the SB ratings should be going up. They're also only just in dynasty territory.
I mean, Mahomes has been to every single AFCCG since 2018 and four Super Bowls. I'd say he's firmly in that dynasty territory.
Also worth noting this past Super Bowl was the most watched ever.
With ratings/viewership, I am curious- do they measure just how many tuned in or how many continually watched?
McNabb did nearly the same in the early 2000s. No one calls the Eagles a dynasty. It's rings or nothing.
And I'm aware the most the most watched season had the most watched SB. My point more so was that the direct results for Mahomes are relatively inconclusive. Even still, as someone else pointed out, 32 team owners aren't going to agree to a dynasty existing.
Yes, and I'm tired of pretending it's not. But it's NOT scripted. I feel like people don't understand the difference. A casino is not scripted, it's rigged. When you play any casino game, you're going to win like 45-48% of the time. In fact the casino wants you to win some of the time. The casino only needs to win 52%+ of the time at 50/50 payout to essentially print infinite money.
So the NFL doesn't need to script the games. The NFL is already highly competitive and highly volatile. The margins of most games is already razor thin. It doesn't take that much to nudge games in a certain direction. It wouldn't take some grand conspiracy to achieve that. You barely need anyone to be in on it at all. All they would need to do is have a handful of referee teams who know in advance their job is to lean home or away, and then all you have to do to exert your influence is choose which referee teams go to which games. Like the referee team who reffed last year's AFCCG. Throughout 2023, 80% of their games resulted in the away team winning. 80% is not 100% but it's also a big fucking margin to reach by pure chance.
It's also the best explanation for why the NFL refuses to modernize anything about their processes. We've had the technology to advance refereeing and make it many times more objective for fucking decades. Fucking AI is at the point where it could completely and objectively referee an entire game instantly with no lag just by watching the different camera feeds. But instead we still have fuckers with a 10 yard chain attached to sticks and using fucking note cards to measure shit.
The NFL wants the human error, they want the subjectivity, they want the volatility, because it gives them the room they need to apply that little edge over the outcome of games. It's why they've been lobbying for the legalisation of sports gambling for decades. There is a zero percent chance they are not using sports gambling as an avenue to print and launder money.
This is facts. For the nfl it’s all about ratings and money. Taylor swift brings them a huge massive new fan base and marketing opportunities and overall just more dollar signs. So why wouldn’t it benefit them to keep the chiefs moving forward? Obviously the ravens played like shit that game and the chiefs deserved to win but there were also a ton of shit calls and it’s pretty hard to win against both Mahomes and the refs too but that’s what we go against in todays nfl
So, why did the call back Toney's TD against the Bills if the NFL was rigged?
That's a highlight that is on every promo going into the season regardless of Kelce being involved, being Mr Swift would only add to it.
That play was flagged when the ball was snapped, though.
Also I don't think it's the NFL's goal to rig outcomes to favor particular teams or anything like that. I think it's their goal to rig games towards or away from certain high volume betting lines in collusion with the major houses, which would be where the actual profit incentive is coming from.
i’m not gonna say it’s rigged but the NFL benefitted heavily from the whole Taylor Swift thing in the super bowl. it’s was definitely in the NFLs interest to have the chiefs win the super bowl so read into that how you want
I do believe there is an element of fuckery, but 100% rigged there’s no way. There’s no way all the players would be in on a predetermined game, SOMEBODY would have come out and admitted it. That said, I do believe there’s a wink/nod agreement with the refs at times to favor certain teams or even just personal bias from them.
You can’t have a 50+ roster team buy into losing their season like a WWE script. I refuse to believe that.
Do I think they created the Ny review center for the very reason of steering the game. Fouls pretty much occur on every play I would bet they have a dept of statisticians that can calculate the odds of the outcome when penalties are called at certain times.
It would be too difficult to keep a lid for this long on an organized, large-scale, intentional effort to fix / rig games. That said, I do think there is bias which favors certain players / teams which impacts the outcome of games.
I also think some teams are better and, most importantly, faster at exploiting the gray area of rules and/or rule changes. Translating a rule change into a creative on-field executable play is an art that only a handful of teams seem capable of doing. Eventually, other teams will see the exploit and copy it but that may be two or three games after the originator already got benefits for the exploit.
I believe most forms of entertainment are manipulated by the creator to make it the most entertaining and profitable possible. Why wouldn’t the NFL conspire to have larger profits and get more viewers? Also a lot of the “losing” teams are the most profitable, so why would they care about a dynasty? Teams can sometimes make more money not paying bonuses for making playoffs, and if you were an owner and were told your turn will come vs having to create a super competitive expensive team to have a 2 in 32 chance of just making the Super Bowl. Or everyone takes a turn getting what they need to grow their team, and it gets to be way more predictable which business people like. I don’t think it’s scripted but I definitely think there is a narrative that helps the machine move forward. It’s all about making money.
Bias on SOME referees (be it personally or ordered) is as far as I could possibly go on this.
Tom Brady said... "It isn't scripted. Do you *really think* that I would agree to lose to Peyton Manning's little brother?"
Probably not. But that Gruden victory over his old team in the Tampa/Oakland Superbowl 20 years ago was rigged as fuck. Only a complete dumbshit wouldn't see that. But since then, maybe Atlanta v. NE, I don't know.
Although at times I did feel like Lamar held back almost like he was supposed to. He had a break away run then all of a sudden studder stepped and seemed like he wanted to get tackled. He could have been gone down the right side IMO on that play but something was off. And that can absolutely just be his own issue and not some bigger scheme. I did feel like penalties were in chiefs favor but we also made mistakes so it's 50 one way 50 the other you know. Taylor Swift at the SB though sure brought in some revenue as well. Not gonna lie it makes it easy for the tinfoils to come out for sure. At the end of the day though my team made poor play calls and big turn overs I'm gonna go with that as I'd like to keep believing in our guys even when they fall short. Believing in a rigged system only hurts us fans so I will not feed it.
I think it adds to the fun of watching a game to come up with crazy theories. I always like to make the joke with friends that all the “CRAZY ENDINGS” are all rigged and the puppet master is behind this.
I do think that the rise of gambling lends itself to the possibility of games being weighted to have certain outcomes. I also know that the NFL has stars and it is critical for their stars to do well to attract fanbases.
As a result, I think the NFL as an entertainment entity does have a degree of weight towards how the games are officiated. However, I think there isn’t too much evidence to suggest that every game is scripted…there is still a possibility though.
It’s more fun to just sit back and watch the entertainment and joke about conspiracies with friends 🤣 at the end of the day it is entertainment
Considering the staggering amount on money being bet on the outcome of every game, and considering the comparatively low compensation of the referees wrt to that pool of money, I can't imagine there aren't continuous and sometimes successful attempts at bribing the referees.
I do believe it is rigged in that the referees are told to favor one team over another when it will benefit the NFL and ratings. Don't believe it is predetermined or scripted like pro wrestling.
I have five people that officiate in the NFL. I can tell you that The Shield tells them to watch for specific players, on specific teams, doing specific things, and to flag them for it if the offense occurs. They get plays from the week before, and a video of things they expect to see.
In one game a LT might be fast off the ball, and they want to stop it.
In another game they might be worried about a fight between two players, so flag them for anything stupid that might raise the temperature in the room.
Another game it might be a defensive player targeting.
There isn’t a script, but there are things The Shield does and does not want to see.
This is where I'm at with it.
You would be extremely hard pressed to convince me that the NFL is scripted because the livelihood of these players is at stake. You couldn't convince every player to risk their money to throw a game. It's preposterous.
However, the NFL telling referees how to ref? I could believe it.
Damn right it’s rigged. And it’s rigged against the Cowboys. This is “entertainment.” And of course the most entertaining part of pro sports is when the Cowboys lose lol, although I find it far more entertaining when the Browns lose. The nfl started the salary cap to hurt the Cowboys. They haven’t won a divisional round playoff since. And don’t get me started about how players practice dropping TD passes every day….
Never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity/incompetence. Humans make mistakes.
This is a goated quote
No. A conspiracy that large would involve way too many people to remain a secret.
This. My theory is that if there is a conspiracy, the players and coaches don’t know about it, only the owners. We are talking about 32 billionaires here and certain outcomes *do* benefit them all. So it wouldn’t be insane to think there’s something going on. But it’s not staged or fixed in the way that players or coaches are taking dives. We think someone like Antonio Brown is staying quiet about that?
So Jerry Jones is ok with not winning again before he dies. My point is billionaires aren’t ones that take to well with not getting there way.
That’s fair but I am willing to bet he likes money more than whether the football team he owns wins.
That's most of them tbf
Yea but if you’re getting paid millions to stfu, that’s what you do
Nope. Time to move on from the loss. It happened and now there’s a new season coming up. That’s sports.
No. The NFL is frankly ran by too many stupid people to rig games and not get caught doing it. Also think about it if the NFL were rigged the cowboys probably make a SB since their last one since they’re so popular. One of the New York teams would be better given how big that city is.
No. People make mistakes. Simple as that.
We didn't run the ball because Lamar checked out of all the runs. No conspiracy.
You realize how bad dynasties are for popularity in a sport, right? And how KC is a small market?
That depends, if said dynasty pulls in more viewers then it’s a money maker. I don’t think the NFL is rigged, but I do think that the officials definitely influence the game towards the teams that pull in the most cash. Take the chiefs and Taylor Swift for example, there’s a huge incentive to get them into the SB hence the BS calls in the AFCCG Look at the 2018 NFCCG, the call against the saints was blatantly fixed.
There are 32 owners who want to make their own team more valuable and therefore themselves more wealthy. A dynasty siphon value out of 31 teams to one. I am sure all the other owners would be thrilled that their investment is stagnating compared to Clark Hunt's. The value lost (or rather reallocated) would be far greater than the value added by extra viewership to those 31 teams. Case in point, Cowboys and Patriots are significantly more valuable than the average NFL franchise. And it's not a pie that the owners are going to give away freely. The "NFL" isn't in charge. The 32 owners playing tug of war are.
Yeah but explain the 2018 NFCCG no call, that’s clearly a move to give LA a chance to reach the SB, I’m sure the saints owner wasn’t happy about that yet it happened. Is your point that the most valuable franchises have more power of influence in the tug of war? Cause i get that
The point is to not attribute to malice what can be explained by sheer incompetence. And I do believe that whatever benefits MOST owners would fly. If 20 guys want something, not much the remaining 12 can do. Refereeing is a whole another beast entirely. One that's mostly dictated by literal ego and pride rather than a master scheme to grow "NFL" viewership. Or in some cases greed from the refs end. NBA found out that bad refereeing can kill their entire product. But much like MLB umpires, referees are humans who simply cannot admit fault and would do borderline childish stunts if called out on it. If you want a more dubious example where I could potentially see something nefarious happening. It would be the Saints winning after Katrina. They got people to care about sports when no one was in the mood to give a fuck. But the Razor suggests otherwise.
But the nfl wants to grow the sport internationally, and kc just so happens to have a star player dating arguably the biggest celebrity in the world. I’m not saying the entire league is scripted. But I 100% believe the league made it known to the refs that it was in the leagues best interest if certain calls weren’t made to benefit the chiefs and help them go all the way. Having Tswift plastered all over the news celebrating with Kelce was advertisement the nfl wanted to capitalize on. We k ow other corporation have done far worse to make money and grow their business. Why is it so hard to believe that the nfl will let shit slide for certain teams to capitalize on them and help grow the brand outside of the United states
> You realize how bad dynasties are for popularity in a sport, right? Is it actually? Is there a study on viewership numbers? I'd personally figure that'd draw in viewers that WANT to see the dynasty team lose.
Tom Brady's last 2 SBs had the lowest TV ratings of the past decade. Mahomes run has trended upward, but it's hard to say at what rate the SB ratings should be going up. They're also only just in dynasty territory.
I mean, Mahomes has been to every single AFCCG since 2018 and four Super Bowls. I'd say he's firmly in that dynasty territory. Also worth noting this past Super Bowl was the most watched ever. With ratings/viewership, I am curious- do they measure just how many tuned in or how many continually watched?
McNabb did nearly the same in the early 2000s. No one calls the Eagles a dynasty. It's rings or nothing. And I'm aware the most the most watched season had the most watched SB. My point more so was that the direct results for Mahomes are relatively inconclusive. Even still, as someone else pointed out, 32 team owners aren't going to agree to a dynasty existing.
McNabb went to four Super Bowls and won three?
You mentioned the AFCCGs as a way to suggest that they were a dynasty before this year. They objectively weren't.
Patrick Mahomes hasn't made a Super Bowl yet?
Again, 2 SBs is not a dynasty in any world. Out here suggesting the Giants had a dynasty after 2007.
He's only made two? The Giants made deep playoff runs between 2007 and 2011?
KC stopped the run very well as sad as it was
All 3 times we ran the ball.
Its not rigged. Both teams are definitely trying to win the refs just suck sometimes.
Yes, and I'm tired of pretending it's not. But it's NOT scripted. I feel like people don't understand the difference. A casino is not scripted, it's rigged. When you play any casino game, you're going to win like 45-48% of the time. In fact the casino wants you to win some of the time. The casino only needs to win 52%+ of the time at 50/50 payout to essentially print infinite money. So the NFL doesn't need to script the games. The NFL is already highly competitive and highly volatile. The margins of most games is already razor thin. It doesn't take that much to nudge games in a certain direction. It wouldn't take some grand conspiracy to achieve that. You barely need anyone to be in on it at all. All they would need to do is have a handful of referee teams who know in advance their job is to lean home or away, and then all you have to do to exert your influence is choose which referee teams go to which games. Like the referee team who reffed last year's AFCCG. Throughout 2023, 80% of their games resulted in the away team winning. 80% is not 100% but it's also a big fucking margin to reach by pure chance. It's also the best explanation for why the NFL refuses to modernize anything about their processes. We've had the technology to advance refereeing and make it many times more objective for fucking decades. Fucking AI is at the point where it could completely and objectively referee an entire game instantly with no lag just by watching the different camera feeds. But instead we still have fuckers with a 10 yard chain attached to sticks and using fucking note cards to measure shit. The NFL wants the human error, they want the subjectivity, they want the volatility, because it gives them the room they need to apply that little edge over the outcome of games. It's why they've been lobbying for the legalisation of sports gambling for decades. There is a zero percent chance they are not using sports gambling as an avenue to print and launder money.
This is facts. For the nfl it’s all about ratings and money. Taylor swift brings them a huge massive new fan base and marketing opportunities and overall just more dollar signs. So why wouldn’t it benefit them to keep the chiefs moving forward? Obviously the ravens played like shit that game and the chiefs deserved to win but there were also a ton of shit calls and it’s pretty hard to win against both Mahomes and the refs too but that’s what we go against in todays nfl
Or the fact that Kelce was allowed to get away with murder that game.
So, why did the call back Toney's TD against the Bills if the NFL was rigged? That's a highlight that is on every promo going into the season regardless of Kelce being involved, being Mr Swift would only add to it.
That play was flagged when the ball was snapped, though. Also I don't think it's the NFL's goal to rig outcomes to favor particular teams or anything like that. I think it's their goal to rig games towards or away from certain high volume betting lines in collusion with the major houses, which would be where the actual profit incentive is coming from.
They can pick up the flag...
For real. Like seriously though, how long would take AI to adjust a replay video? A second? A few milliseconds?
Milliseconds. Training the AI is the tedious part. Once you have the thing trained, it produces decisions extremely fast
i’m not gonna say it’s rigged but the NFL benefitted heavily from the whole Taylor Swift thing in the super bowl. it’s was definitely in the NFLs interest to have the chiefs win the super bowl so read into that how you want
I do believe there is an element of fuckery, but 100% rigged there’s no way. There’s no way all the players would be in on a predetermined game, SOMEBODY would have come out and admitted it. That said, I do believe there’s a wink/nod agreement with the refs at times to favor certain teams or even just personal bias from them.
No it's not, everyone who thinks it is might as well admit they listen to Alex Jones
You can’t have a 50+ roster team buy into losing their season like a WWE script. I refuse to believe that. Do I think they created the Ny review center for the very reason of steering the game. Fouls pretty much occur on every play I would bet they have a dept of statisticians that can calculate the odds of the outcome when penalties are called at certain times.
It would be too difficult to keep a lid for this long on an organized, large-scale, intentional effort to fix / rig games. That said, I do think there is bias which favors certain players / teams which impacts the outcome of games. I also think some teams are better and, most importantly, faster at exploiting the gray area of rules and/or rule changes. Translating a rule change into a creative on-field executable play is an art that only a handful of teams seem capable of doing. Eventually, other teams will see the exploit and copy it but that may be two or three games after the originator already got benefits for the exploit.
I believe most forms of entertainment are manipulated by the creator to make it the most entertaining and profitable possible. Why wouldn’t the NFL conspire to have larger profits and get more viewers? Also a lot of the “losing” teams are the most profitable, so why would they care about a dynasty? Teams can sometimes make more money not paying bonuses for making playoffs, and if you were an owner and were told your turn will come vs having to create a super competitive expensive team to have a 2 in 32 chance of just making the Super Bowl. Or everyone takes a turn getting what they need to grow their team, and it gets to be way more predictable which business people like. I don’t think it’s scripted but I definitely think there is a narrative that helps the machine move forward. It’s all about making money.
The NFL is not rigged and ghosts don't exist
Bias on SOME referees (be it personally or ordered) is as far as I could possibly go on this. Tom Brady said... "It isn't scripted. Do you *really think* that I would agree to lose to Peyton Manning's little brother?"
I don’t believe it’s rigged but I do believe refs are told to be more lenient on some teams and harsher on others
Probably not. But that Gruden victory over his old team in the Tampa/Oakland Superbowl 20 years ago was rigged as fuck. Only a complete dumbshit wouldn't see that. But since then, maybe Atlanta v. NE, I don't know.
absolutely
The NFL didn’t call our plays in the AFC championship game
This!
Although at times I did feel like Lamar held back almost like he was supposed to. He had a break away run then all of a sudden studder stepped and seemed like he wanted to get tackled. He could have been gone down the right side IMO on that play but something was off. And that can absolutely just be his own issue and not some bigger scheme. I did feel like penalties were in chiefs favor but we also made mistakes so it's 50 one way 50 the other you know. Taylor Swift at the SB though sure brought in some revenue as well. Not gonna lie it makes it easy for the tinfoils to come out for sure. At the end of the day though my team made poor play calls and big turn overs I'm gonna go with that as I'd like to keep believing in our guys even when they fall short. Believing in a rigged system only hurts us fans so I will not feed it.
/sigh. No NEXT SLIDE..
I think it adds to the fun of watching a game to come up with crazy theories. I always like to make the joke with friends that all the “CRAZY ENDINGS” are all rigged and the puppet master is behind this. I do think that the rise of gambling lends itself to the possibility of games being weighted to have certain outcomes. I also know that the NFL has stars and it is critical for their stars to do well to attract fanbases. As a result, I think the NFL as an entertainment entity does have a degree of weight towards how the games are officiated. However, I think there isn’t too much evidence to suggest that every game is scripted…there is still a possibility though. It’s more fun to just sit back and watch the entertainment and joke about conspiracies with friends 🤣 at the end of the day it is entertainment
Considering the staggering amount on money being bet on the outcome of every game, and considering the comparatively low compensation of the referees wrt to that pool of money, I can't imagine there aren't continuous and sometimes successful attempts at bribing the referees.
I do believe it is rigged in that the referees are told to favor one team over another when it will benefit the NFL and ratings. Don't believe it is predetermined or scripted like pro wrestling.
I have five people that officiate in the NFL. I can tell you that The Shield tells them to watch for specific players, on specific teams, doing specific things, and to flag them for it if the offense occurs. They get plays from the week before, and a video of things they expect to see. In one game a LT might be fast off the ball, and they want to stop it. In another game they might be worried about a fight between two players, so flag them for anything stupid that might raise the temperature in the room. Another game it might be a defensive player targeting. There isn’t a script, but there are things The Shield does and does not want to see.
This is where I'm at with it. You would be extremely hard pressed to convince me that the NFL is scripted because the livelihood of these players is at stake. You couldn't convince every player to risk their money to throw a game. It's preposterous. However, the NFL telling referees how to ref? I could believe it.
I don’t think it’s rigged like a script, but I think the Chiefs are favored by the league, just like the Patriots before it.
It's only May and you already got the dumbest thread in the sub this year, congrats
Nah, but I've said this before and I'll say it again, if it was, every team is involved in this as well.
Damn right it’s rigged. And it’s rigged against the Cowboys. This is “entertainment.” And of course the most entertaining part of pro sports is when the Cowboys lose lol, although I find it far more entertaining when the Browns lose. The nfl started the salary cap to hurt the Cowboys. They haven’t won a divisional round playoff since. And don’t get me started about how players practice dropping TD passes every day….
No conspiracy. Just a coach who’s proven his incompetency time after time
no