NFL is Fixed

[RaminExile]

My gut tells me its fixed. There's enough fuel to make a case for it - and there's usually no smoke without fire (sometimes there is dry ice....) but until a whistleblower comes out and says it nothing will be done....and if its the mob who's behind it that's unlikely to happen whilst a guy cares for his or his families lives...

 

[LesBaker]

Ummm, where do you think the league evolved from? The color of the spots behind the scenes have not changed, how would they?

Not only is that not true, it's complete and total BS.

Once again I'll ask if you think it's totally fixed why do you bother watching and why are you a fan of something designed to cheat you?

 

[shaunpinney]

hi guys, and happy new year to you all....

The league may or may not be rigged, i don't think it is, but i do agree that the officiating is poor in certain games, like it is in soccer and rugby, it doesn't mean its all rigged, maybe there should be an independent officiating ombudsman that could review the quality of refereeing on a game by game basis to try and create a more uniform officiating and if a referee has seemed to be biased against or for a team then there should be ramifications and suspensions for these misdemeanours.

Maybe the league could bring in a TMO similar to what they've brought into rugby, the TMO (Television Match Official) watches the screens and is like a video referee, sometimes seeing something on the screen is totally different to officiating on the pitch. This season the TMO can call to the referee's attention a particular play which he deems should be penalised etc, the on pitch refereeing team then re-views it on the big screen, seems to be working well so far - again I'm not sure if this sort of thing is already in the NFL.

But again, lets remember, the officials are human, they make human mistakes, as do the players and coaches, its just the officials can't hide from the fact.

 

[duckhunter]

My grandfather who has been dead for nearly 50 years told me he quit watching pro football because the primary reason was cheating involving the refs. He only watched college football until he died a few years later.

My father, other grandfather, in laws, and extended family called Dallas the snake pit starting in the 60s. We used to say, 'On the field it was 11 vs 14 because three officials were usually blatantly for Dallas.'

Go back to Shoeless Joe Jackson and teammates throwing a world series back in the early 1900s if you don't think sports can and will be crooked.

Now today, almost every single financial market in the world from stock markets, to bonds to commodities to derivatives have been found fraudulent at one time or another with multi-billion dollar fines but few convictions or admittance of guilt because to admit means banning of firms and disruption of trillion dollar markets. Just as an example, the largest bank in the world, JP Morgan, paid out over $13 billion in fines last year as negotiated settlements rather than admit guilt or have further investigation in their activities.

My assertion is: If pro sports did not have a Congressional exemption from government oversight and business practice laws, DOJ and the FBI would have had hundreds of cases of corruption against pro sports through the years.

Too many conspiracy theories have been proved correct in my lifetime to ignore corruption of individuals and institutions within our society.

The lies, stealing and cheating going on today are off the charts whether, if you like, complicity but unfortunately led by the very fabric of society, our government.

 

[Prime Time]

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/01/05/nfl-morning-after-the-nfl-has-a-problem/

The NFL has a problem
Posted by Michael David Smith on January 5, 2015

AP

The NFL has a problem on its hands. That problem was magnified on Sunday when a terrible call went against the Lions in a crucial moment in their playoff loss to the Cowboys. But that problem goes far beyond one play or one game.

The problem in the NFL is that too many officials are bad at their jobs, the rulebook is overly complex, and the league office stands by and does nothing about it.

In Sunday’s Lions-Cowboys game, a pass interference penalty was correctly called on Cowboys linebacker Anthony Hitchens. Referee Pete Morelli turned on his microphone and announced the penalty. And then he inexplicably picked up the flag, decided not to enforce it, and didn’t turn his microphone back on to explain why.

This was a terrible call, and it turned out to be a season-ending call for the Lions. Detroit, to be blunt, got screwed.

Let’s get all the conspiracy theories out of the way: No, I do not believe NFL head of officiating Dean Blandino fixed the game for Cowboys owner Jerry Jones just because Blandino was seen on Jones’s party bus.

No, I do not believe NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell ordered the officials to make sure the Cowboys win because the Cowboys bring big TV ratings.

No, I do not believe one of the officials is the NFL’s version of Tim Donaghy.

No, I do not believe there was any type of conspiracy against the Lions.

What I believe went against the Lions is incompetence. And incompetent officials blow calls every week in the NFL. And the league office lets it happen, week after week after week.

Players get cut every week when they screw up. Coaches’ jobs are on the line every season. When was the last time a referee got fired for a pattern of bad calls?

This isn’t a call to fire Pete Morelli because this isn’t just about Pete Morelli. In fact, I don’t think Morelli is even close to the worst referee in the NFL. That honor belongs to Jeff Triplette, whose blown calls are so legion that I’d get depressed if I listed them all here. (It says something about Triplette that he once seriously injured a player by throwing a weighted-down penalty flag in his eye, and that wasn’t even close to his biggest blunder.)

Triplette is so bad that when he blew a replay review last year, the NFL responded not by firing him but by changing the entire replay review system. Now all referees have to get on the phone with Blandino while they’re reviewing a replay to make sure they’re not screwing it up. Triplette can’t be trusted to get it right on his own.

Triplette keeps his job because NFL officials aren’t held to anywhere near the same high standards that NFL players and coaches are held to. That’s a big part of the NFL’s problem. The NFL needs to fire the officials who get the lowest scores on their evaluations, just as players and coaches lose their jobs when they’re at the bottom of the league. And the NFL needs to replace those fired officials with the best officials in college football, just as the best college players push veteran NFL players out of their jobs every year. That’s the way football works.

Rather, that’s the way it should work. In the NFL, it doesn’t work. In the NFL, officials are handled with kid gloves and coddled with perks like playoff assignments even if their work is below average in the regular season. What the NFL should do is assign the four best officiating crews to the playoffs and have them each work one wild-card game and one divisional game, then have the two best officiating crews work the conference championship games and the best officiating crew work the Super Bowl.

Instead, the NFL allows 10 different officials at each position to work in the playoffs, and the league mixes and matches those officials so that they’re often working with fellow officials they’ve never worked with before.

There was obviously some kind of communication breakdown that led Morelli to wave off the flag on the crucial pass interference penalty against the Cowboys. Perhaps if these officials had worked together before Sunday, they would have been better able to communicate together and get the call right.

It should be noted, in defense of the officials, that the NFL puts them in a bad spot with an overly complex rulebook that is incredibly difficult to decipher, even for the professionals. And the NFL draws some odd distinctions about which kinds of plays are reviewable on replay and which plays aren’t. If Lions coach Jim Caldwell had been permitted to challenge the pass interference non-call on replay, perhaps Morelli would have gotten the call right.

Every year the NFL tweaks the rulebook and makes changes to the way the officials do their jobs, but if you’re hoping for real improvement, don’t hold your breath. The league office knows that Americans love their football so much that they’ll keep tuning in. Even when a game gets ruined by the refs.

 

[Faceplant]

I have a very hard time chalking this picked up flag to mere incompetence. This was far too deliberate.

There was clearly PI on the play. They had announced the penalty. marked it off, and the teams were lining up for the next play. Without any explanation, all of the sudden it's fourth down and Detroit has to punt. That takes a bit more deliberation than mere incompetence can explain.

And to those who are saying that Pettigrew committed offensive PI (I didn't see it), the Dallas defender was clearly grabbing his jersey. So even if your theory is correct, it should have then been offsetting penalties and a replay of 3rd down.

I don't know what the explanation is. But I know what it isn't - it isn't incompetence.

See, this is my point as well. I have never..EVER seen a call get made, with a player named, and yardage marked off....just disappear. No explanation, nothing. I have seen flags picked up, but not AFTER the penalty was announced!! Something is rotten in Bizmark.

 

[LesBaker]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf57TGvh_nI


Say what you guys want and I might be in the minority here, but that was not PI. If anything Pettigrew could have been called for a facemask on the play. The defender stuck his hands up as Pettigrew turned and starting to fall to show he hadn't made contact and the ball went off his shoulder.

Hate physics all you want, you cant make a break back to the ball if you don't plant your feet and try to do something other than fall down.

I said it in another thread, but the exact thing happened in one of the Rams games earlier this year, but I can't quite remember the game. It was down the right sideline and a flag came out for face guarding/PI. They called it no penalty because the defender didn't impede the receivers path back to the ball (just as in this play the receiver never broke back towards the line of scrimmage, just fell backwards).

The lack of explanation was odd though

There was contact from both players all through the route so picking up the flag was fine with me. When I saw the replay before they picked up the flag it wasn't clear who they were calling the penalty on. I was at a sushi bar and the TV's had the sound off.........

Was it a bad call? Hard to say since it could have been on either player and the contact made as the ball was arriving was coming from both parties.

It also wasn't a well thrown ball IMO. Had there been zero contact and/or the defender turned around it was an EASY interception. Stafford should have lofted the ball in rather than firing it straight in like he did.

@Faceplant I've seen this happen before, it isn't the first time.

 

[LesBaker]

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/01/05/nfl-morning-after-the-nfl-has-a-problem/

The NFL has a problem
Posted by Michael David Smith on January 5, 2015

AP

The NFL has a problem on its hands. That problem was magnified on Sunday when a terrible call went against the Lions in a crucial moment in their playoff loss to the Cowboys. But that problem goes far beyond one play or one game.

The problem in the NFL is that too many officials are bad at their jobs, the rulebook is overly complex, and the league office stands by and does nothing about it.

In Sunday’s Lions-Cowboys game, a pass interference penalty was correctly called on Cowboys linebacker Anthony Hitchens. Referee Pete Morelli turned on his microphone and announced the penalty. And then he inexplicably picked up the flag, decided not to enforce it, and didn’t turn his microphone back on to explain why.

This was a terrible call, and it turned out to be a season-ending call for the Lions. Detroit, to be blunt, got screwed.

Let’s get all the conspiracy theories out of the way: No, I do not believe NFL head of officiating Dean Blandino fixed the game for Cowboys owner Jerry Jones just because Blandino was seen on Jones’s party bus.

No, I do not believe NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell ordered the officials to make sure the Cowboys win because the Cowboys bring big TV ratings.

No, I do not believe one of the officials is the NFL’s version of Tim Donaghy.

No, I do not believe there was any type of conspiracy against the Lions.

What I believe went against the Lions is incompetence. And incompetent officials blow calls every week in the NFL. And the league office lets it happen, week after week after week.

Players get cut every week when they screw up. Coaches’ jobs are on the line every season. When was the last time a referee got fired for a pattern of bad calls?

This isn’t a call to fire Pete Morelli because this isn’t just about Pete Morelli. In fact, I don’t think Morelli is even close to the worst referee in the NFL. That honor belongs to Jeff Triplette, whose blown calls are so legion that I’d get depressed if I listed them all here. (It says something about Triplette that he once seriously injured a player by throwing a weighted-down penalty flag in his eye, and that wasn’t even close to his biggest blunder.)

Triplette is so bad that when he blew a replay review last year, the NFL responded not by firing him but by changing the entire replay review system. Now all referees have to get on the phone with Blandino while they’re reviewing a replay to make sure they’re not screwing it up. Triplette can’t be trusted to get it right on his own.

Triplette keeps his job because NFL officials aren’t held to anywhere near the same high standards that NFL players and coaches are held to. That’s a big part of the NFL’s problem. The NFL needs to fire the officials who get the lowest scores on their evaluations, just as players and coaches lose their jobs when they’re at the bottom of the league. And the NFL needs to replace those fired officials with the best officials in college football, just as the best college players push veteran NFL players out of their jobs every year. That’s the way football works.

Rather, that’s the way it should work. In the NFL, it doesn’t work. In the NFL, officials are handled with kid gloves and coddled with perks like playoff assignments even if their work is below average in the regular season. What the NFL should do is assign the four best officiating crews to the playoffs and have them each work one wild-card game and one divisional game, then have the two best officiating crews work the conference championship games and the best officiating crew work the Super Bowl.

Instead, the NFL allows 10 different officials at each position to work in the playoffs, and the league mixes and matches those officials so that they’re often working with fellow officials they’ve never worked with before.

There was obviously some kind of communication breakdown that led Morelli to wave off the flag on the crucial pass interference penalty against the Cowboys. Perhaps if these officials had worked together before Sunday, they would have been better able to communicate together and get the call right.

It should be noted, in defense of the officials, that the NFL puts them in a bad spot with an overly complex rulebook that is incredibly difficult to decipher, even for the professionals. And the NFL draws some odd distinctions about which kinds of plays are reviewable on replay and which plays aren’t. If Lions coach Jim Caldwell had been permitted to challenge the pass interference non-call on replay, perhaps Morelli would have gotten the call right.

Every year the NFL tweaks the rulebook and makes changes to the way the officials do their jobs, but if you’re hoping for real improvement, don’t hold your breath. The league office knows that Americans love their football so much that they’ll keep tuning in. Even when a game gets ruined by the refs.

The problem with this article is so obvious the guys editor should take him to task. This is REALLY shoddy journalism.

This is NOT happening because of the NFL. It's happening because of the refs union. They are the ones that won't allow accountability, and "backups" to replace the guys who fuck up constantly. The refs are terrible because their union allows them to be and the NFL was pressured by fans and the media to end the strike a couple of years ago. Had the two sides been allowed to actually negotiate the NFL may have gotten it's wish and the quality of the officiating might be increased.

People seem to forget this little fact though because they like to beat up the NFL and Goodell at every turn.

Goodell and the NFL wanted increaded accountability, changes in a refs status if they fell below a grade level, increased training and testing and some other stuff that the unio was dead set againt. When the media and fans were screaming about the replacement refs the NFL caved to the pressure.

How do you feel about the replacement refs now? They don't really look any different do they?

This is another example of be careful what you wish for.

 

[jrry32]

My gut tells me its fixed. There's enough fuel to make a case for it - and there's usually no smoke without fire (sometimes there is dry ice....) but until a whistleblower comes out and says it nothing will be done....and if its the mob who's behind it that's unlikely to happen whilst a guy cares for his or his families lives...

I don't know about fixed. It's not possible to "fix" games fully. But I do question if there isn't someone pulling the strings who tells the refs to favor certain teams each week.

It seems absolutely crazy to me...but it just gets more believable by the day, unfortunately.

 

[Athos]

In Sunday’s Lions-Cowboys game, a pass interference penalty was correctly called on Cowboys linebacker Anthony Hitchens. Referee Pete Morelli turned on his microphone and announced the penalty. And then he inexplicably picked up the flag, decided not to enforce it, and didn’t turn his microphone back on to explain why.

That's the kicker there. No damned explanation. That just reeks even more.

But meh....I can't really care at this point for a totally unrelated issue. (Had to put my childhoodish cat to sleep last night after a late night call from the vet......fucking ruined my week more than a silly game did.)

 

[Stranger]

My grandfather who has been dead for nearly 50 years told me he quit watching pro football because the primary reason was cheating involving the refs. He only watched college football until he died a few years later.

My father, other grandfather, in laws, and extended family called Dallas the snake pit starting in the 60s. We used to say, 'On the field it was 11 vs 14 because three officials were usually blatantly for Dallas.'

Go back to Shoeless Joe Jackson and teammates throwing a world series back in the early 1900s if you don't think sports can and will be crooked.

Now today, almost every single financial market in the world from stock markets, to bonds to commodities to derivatives have been found fraudulent at one time or another with multi-billion dollar fines but few convictions or admittance of guilt because to admit means banning of firms and disruption of trillion dollar markets. Just as an example, the largest bank in the world, JP Morgan, paid out over $13 billion in fines last year as negotiated settlements rather than admit guilt or have further investigation in their activities.

My assertion is: If pro sports did not have a Congressional exemption from government oversight and business practice laws, DOJ and the FBI would have had hundreds of cases of corruption against pro sports through the years.

Too many conspiracy theories have been proved correct in my lifetime to ignore corruption of individuals and institutions within our society.

The lies, stealing and cheating going on today are off the charts whether, if you like, complicity but unfortunately led by the very fabric of society, our government.

Very well said.

The problem in the NFL is that too many officials are bad at their jobs, the rulebook is overly complex, and the league office stands by and does nothing about it.

They know the manipulation was so obvious that the public saw it as manipulation, so now the NFL's army of sportwriters, who's livelihoods depend on NFL, are going to spin spin spin this away as just bad officiating, complicate rulebook.... blah blah blah... changes will be made. Watch for it.

 

[Prime Time]

That's the kicker there. No damned explanation. That just reeks even more.

But meh....I can't really care at this point for a totally unrelated issue. (Had to put my childhoodish cat to sleep last night after a late night call from the vet......freaking ruined my week more than a silly game did.)

Went through the same thing with one of my dogs about a year ago. He just missed his 15th birthday by 10 days. It's painful and it sucks.

If it turned out that the NFL was actually fixed I would stop caring and watching. For now I lean on the "massive incompetence at all levels of the NFL" theory. Then again it's all about money and ratings. What teams would bring in higher ratings, the Rams and the Lions or the Cowboys and the Patriots?

That terrible non-call by the refs in the Lions-Cowboys game generated what might have been a 14-point swing and gave the momentum to the Cowboys. It's difficult to win on the road against whatever team you're playing against but when the refs skew the results then it's nigh on to impossible to come away with a victory.

 

[Alaskan Ram]

This is the kind of DPI I hate seeing called. As a very small minority here have also pointed out: Offensive player grabs defensive players mask, making it impossible to turn for the ball. Then stops and falls backwards while the defender gets hit in the back with the ball.

I hate the cowboys.

I hated the DPI call when it was made more than I hate the cowboys.

In all the years I've watched football I've never seen this many people see a play differently than I did. I mean, we all are fans with a healthy knowledge of the game.

But geez? the way I saw this play puts me in about a 1% minority.

This is the opposite of homerism. This is hate fueled delusion.

 

[LesBaker]

This is the kind of DPI I hate seeing called. As a very small minority here have also pointed out: Offensive player grabs defensive players mask, making it impossible to turn for the ball. Then stops and falls backwards while the defender gets hit in the back with the ball.

I hate the cowboys.

I hated the DPI call when it was made more than I hate the cowboys.

In all the years I've watched football I've never seen this many people see a play differently than I did. I mean, we all are fans with a healthy knowledge of the game.

But geez? the way I saw this play puts me in about a 1% minority.

This is the opposite of homerism. This is hate fueled delusion.

Yup and the entire "the fix is in" cracks me up because if it's true Jerruh must have forgotten to wire the money for the last 15 years LOL.

 

[Sum1]

Ditto. IF there was a fix in place, I find it hard to believe they would do so in such an obvious occurrence. It would be much easier to call/not call interior line 'stuff' that could have just as much impact, but be much less arguable. Somebody would have had to have serious leverage on me to get me to 'fix' this one.

Especially in this case. What, the ref threw the flag then someone buzzed in to him to pick it up for a little extra cash? I don't think so.

 

[thirteen28]

Officiating is garbage... but it's a lot less garbage for certain teams than it is for others. As I said in the other thread, there comes a point where still refusing to see that is just deliberate blindness, especially if one is mocking others who do see it.

Might not be a conspiracy per se... but it's clear to me there's certain teams the officials think "should" win over others.

 

[CodeMonkey]

I wouldn't necessarily use the word "fixed". However, I do know that human beings can be corrupted. There is a lot of incentive here if one considers the sheer amount of power and money at stake, including gambling revenue. As I said in our last discussion on this matter, one really only has three choices: 1) Accept that it's true and just part of the "game" 2) Deny it 3) Quit the NFL.

 

[LesBaker]

Especially in this case. What, the ref threw the flag then someone buzzed in to him to pick it up for a little extra cash? I don't think so.

The whole idea is ridiculous because so many people would have to be involved that at least a few of them wold be cashing in with book deals.

 

[Boffo97]

The whole idea is ridiculous because so many people would have to be involved that at least a few of them wold be cashing in with book deals.

It's nowhere near as many if it's just referees thinking that a certain team "should" win and bending the calls a certain way.

There are other options besides there being no problem at all, and full on game scripting.

 

[fearsomefour]

My grandfather who has been dead for nearly 50 years told me he quit watching pro football because the primary reason was cheating involving the refs. He only watched college football until he died a few years later.

My father, other grandfather, in laws, and extended family called Dallas the snake pit starting in the 60s. We used to say, 'On the field it was 11 vs 14 because three officials were usually blatantly for Dallas.'

Go back to Shoeless Joe Jackson and teammates throwing a world series back in the early 1900s if you don't think sports can and will be crooked.

Now today, almost every single financial market in the world from stock markets, to bonds to commodities to derivatives have been found fraudulent at one time or another with multi-billion dollar fines but few convictions or admittance of guilt because to admit means banning of firms and disruption of trillion dollar markets. Just as an example, the largest bank in the world, JP Morgan, paid out over $13 billion in fines last year as negotiated settlements rather than admit guilt or have further investigation in their activities.

My assertion is: If pro sports did not have a Congressional exemption from government oversight and business practice laws, DOJ and the FBI would have had hundreds of cases of corruption against pro sports through the years.

Too many conspiracy theories have been proved correct in my lifetime to ignore corruption of individuals and institutions within our society.

The lies, stealing and cheating going on today are off the charts whether, if you like, complicity but unfortunately led by the very fabric of society, our government.

No offense, but, your grandfather, father, father in law or anyone else have no more insight into what going on with this stuff than any other observer.
I have a good family friend who was a top college ref for decades, he said there were some bad officials....as in made bad calls or missed stuff, but, that he never saw fixing.
Shoeless Joe Jackson and 7 teammates went to trial for throwing the 1919 world series, but, were acquitted. Because they were acquitted does not mean it was not thrown of course, but, Jackson hit .375 in the series and committed no errors.
Very, very few conspiracy theories are ever proven to be true. Not suspected, not tied together with flimsy pieces of evidentiary string, but proven.
Pro sports has what exemption from governmental oversight? The exemption that led to congressional hearings on PED use?