Please don’t let all the conspiracy folks around here make you think the Saints organization is the hated stepchild of the league. Goodell couldn’t care less about what the Saints do; good or bad. We aren’t living rent free in his head. All he wants from every franchise is that they keep the money pipeline flowing.
The problem with these theorists is that they believe every officiating screw up has a method to the madness. But these same folks live in a very small world and fail to see (or accept) that equality bad officiating happens across the board for & against EVERY team in the league. But they only take note when we are the victims of egregiously bad calls & no calls.
The NFL wants the human element to remain in the game. They always have. Of course they do need to be on the lookout for any official who may have a sportsbook app on his phone. Individual referees could be tempted to favor a team that would give them an advantage in the gambling world. Such things have happened before and are likely to happen again.
However it’s hard to imagine that most officials are willing to ruin such a good thing as their cushy NFL gig just for a shot that they won’t get caught being tied to a big payoff.
But the league (or Goodell himself) is not interested in promoting one franchise at the expense of another franchise. This would be especially true in regard to the Saints who were once raking in some of the highest ratings of any of the 32 teams. Our success in the TV market share was the single biggest reason the Saints were regularly being scheduled with 5 to 7 primetime nationwide broadcasts each year. It literally makes no sense to deliberately want to destroy your cash cow.
Do yourself a favor and read the fan sites of other losing teams each week. I promise you that you will find nearly the same number of threads discussing the ‘fixed calls’ and why the league hates their team so much.
Just don’t allow all these butthurt fans around here fool you into thinking that we are truly the NFL’s whipping boy.