So I had conversation with an Nfl official (2 Viewers)

[muddbug2]

I would have asked him why wasn't hitting a defenseless receiver or helmet to helmet called or discussed among the refs. I believe the refs were not going to call anything under two minutes of the game no matter what.

This is so correct - create an exciting conclusion with no flags.

 

[boutrous]

The only wildcard is over the longer term is soccer eclipses NFL.

Please, no. I'm sorry, I know a lot of people are fans, but I just can't stomach soccer.

 

[blackadder]

Please, no. I'm sorry, I know a lot of people are fans, but I just can't stomach soccer.

I'm not talking about what you or I like right now. Talking about the long term trends with demographic and cultural shifts. Multigenerational.

In Atlanta the MLS is arguably more popular than the NFL but there are sub trends under that as well as far as the demographics of the region and the the fan bases of MLS vs NFL.

 

[Bill]

Calling it absurd was the wrong word choice. That was more emphatic and confrontational than it needed to be.

I understand the capacity for corruption to occur. Extreme wealth and power can drive people to act unethically and break the law. We hear about it often.

Could the NFL be acting in a way to rig outcomes? Sure. And I’ve never said that’s impossible. But I don’t think that’s what is going on - at least where I’m most interested; the idea that the league is targeting the Saints. I think it satisfies some people to believe that and that’s their choice.

What I see is a broken system of officiating that is regularly bad, affecting games around the league. True, none worse than the non-call that cost the Saints a trip to the Super Bowl. But the reality of the problem is we are hardly the only team on the receiving end of bad officiating.

I do understand and agree that the league has a strong interest in their relationship and investment in LA, but that doesn’t create a straight line to allegations of engaging in fraud and conspiracy.

I think there is a lot wrong with the NFL and its direction under Roger Goodell. I’m not defending the league or ignoring issues that I believe to exist, but there is no credible evidence that the games are being rigged at a systemic level and at the direction of the commissioner. In the absence of evidence to consider, beyond what we want to see, it does exist as a conspiracy theory.

Thank you for bringing some reason to the table.

Look, I am as upset as the next Saints fan regarding the way the officials have blown calls in recent Saints games. But I see incompetence, NOT conspiracy.

I don't understand why fans don't ask themselves why the officials waited until the waning moments of a close NFCCG to initiate the 'fix' in this game. If it was truly a fixed game, wouldn't there have been ample chances to open the game up to the Rams and have the score out of reach in favor of LA by those closing minutes? What if the Saints hadn't run that play to Tommy Lee Lewis? At what point were they going to make sure the Rams pulled out the victory? Could they have known what was coming after the Saints completed that series even if it was just a field goal?

By the time the infamous "no call" play happened it was far too late to install some 'plan' to give the Rams a win. Was there some bias in the game? Very likely... I mean a lot of these guys were from Los Angeles. But once again, they would have been needing to start the fix much earlier in the game with calls that were just as egregious as the one we saw on the 'bang-bang' call.

It was a perfect storm of mistakes by the officials that led to the Saints demise in the NFCCG. If anything the poor clock adjustment and the 'inadvertent whistle' blunders should only add to the proof of how incompetent the officials can be because if it was planned in advance, they would have known in advance how easy it was going to be for them to be recognized and ridiculed for these kinds of rules mistakes. No one purposely wants that kind of confrontation. They would only try to pull something that would fall into the 'judgment' category.

Most Saints fans are falling into the trap of "if the crying & complaining is long enough and loud enough, it must be true". But what we simply have here is continuing cases of incompetent officiating at the highest level. Should the league be trying to correct that? Absolutely. But right now they are happy with what they have on the field and they are letting the chips fall where they may in what is simply an imperfect system.

And I can promise you that the scrutiny of the officials over these blunders is only going to make the calls worse in the future because now these guys are worried too much about how the rules are written and how much the ultra-slow motion replays from multiple angles will expose them. And frankly that's why the more complex the rule book gets, the more mistakes are going to be made by these crews. If they were going to have a stop gap booth official to rule the roost of every NFL game, then he/she needs to be unafraid to make the call as the cameras verify it and let the official who made the errant call take his lumps.

We just want them to get the calls right as often as humanly and technically possible.

 

[Jeff Miller]

If Ref's have to admit mistakes, they loose the GOD power they have to control the game, they will sabotage all 32 teams before they ever let that happen.

 

[sfidc3]

I do understand and agree that the league has a strong interest in their relationship and investment in LA, but that doesn’t create a straight line to allegations of engaging in fraud and conspiracy.

It doesn't create one but at a minimum its a pretty bad look...and I think even reasonable/rational folks would not entirely rule out the possibility that fraud and conspiracy are both real....

“The league” is thirty-two owners. Which team do you think Mrs Benson “favors” if not the Saints? Now work down the list of owners.

I disagree here, I think the NFL is really run by the most powerful 4-5 owners and Goodell follows their orders. All of the motivations for the NFL to need this latest attempt to establish the LA market (I believe it has failed 3 times before) has already been discussed....that motivation is very real....and it is not as big a stretch to me, as it would have been before the last NFC championship game to think there is something very rotten in Denmark going on....

 

[DavidM]

Who are those 4-5 owners and what do you consider evidence that they are benefiting from on the field favoritism (since that’s what this is about)?

 

[Frank The Rat]

It was not a a bang bang play. When I saw the hit, I assumed a flag would be thrown, I got up, went to use the restroom, then went to get a drink, built a monument to Drew in my front yard, came back as the ball was just getting to Tommylee. Tell your friend is full of something....

 

[DavidM]

Following up on my last post, my comments are centered on the idea that games are rigged and that team owners are going along with that. If the argument is that a small group of owners is pulling strings to make this happen, and you’ve figured it out, you don’t think the 20 something other owners would have figured that out, too?

Away from the field, I have no doubt that there is a power structure within league ownership. I’m not speculating on the possibility of backend business arrangements or speaking up for an integrity I don’t think exists.

 

[coceaux]

I am not sure what to call it, conspiracy, fraud, old age refs, the game is too fast without technology, but something is seriously wrong. After the blown call in NFCCG had died down, people were saying suck it up we will get em next year. My fears about next year have become reality(bad calls that cost us games and the injury to Drew). So I am note sure what to think about the league. I know, as DavidM stated, I am disenfranchised to say the least. I’m done, rant off.

 

[Spylake]

What is the median age for NFL officials? So many of them look to be 55 or over. Maybe the game moves too fast for them?

Wow just wow. Agist much? Don't say that around Drew.

 

[Spylake]

I know there are some fans who are all-in on this theory but I just don’t see it.

It couldn’t be from Goodell acting unilaterally which means other owners would have to be in on it. Who? How? What about ones who don’t want to go along with it?

Every time a corruption scandal breaks people are shocked by the extend and the list of people involved. Payola, the 64 thousand dollar question, Pac-12 officiating, doping in baseball and recently the Pay for scholarship racket.

It is unlikely that there is malfeasance at work in the NFL but it isn't impossible. Remember Tim Donaghy? There could be an NFL ref or crew that has a gambling problem.

 

[boutrous]

Thank you for bringing some reason to the table.

Look, I am as upset as the next Saints fan regarding the way the officials have blown calls in recent Saints games. But I see incompetence, NOT conspiracy.

I don't understand why fans don't ask themselves why the officials waited until the waning moments of a close NFCCG to initiate the 'fix' in this game. If it was truly a fixed game, wouldn't there have been ample chances to open the game up to the Rams and have the score out of reach in favor of LA by those closing minutes? What if the Saints hadn't run that play to Tommy Lee Lewis? At what point were they going to make sure the Rams pulled out the victory? Could they have known what was coming after the Saints completed that series even if it was just a field goal?

By the time the infamous "no call" play happened it was far too late to install some 'plan' to give the Rams a win. Was there some bias in the game? Very likely... I mean a lot of these guys were from Los Angeles. But once again, they would have been needing to start the fix much earlier in the game with calls that were just as egregious as the one we saw on the 'bang-bang' call.

It was a perfect storm of mistakes by the officials that led to the Saints demise in the NFCCG. If anything the poor clock adjustment and the 'inadvertent whistle' blunders should only add to the proof of how incompetent the officials can be because if it was planned in advance, they would have known in advance how easy it was going to be for them to be recognized and ridiculed for these kinds of rules mistakes. No one purposely wants that kind of confrontation. They would only try to pull something that would fall into the 'judgment' category.

Most Saints fans are falling into the trap of "if the crying & complaining is long enough and loud enough, it must be true". But what we simply have here is continuing cases of incompetent officiating at the highest level. Should the league be trying to correct that? Absolutely. But right now they are happy with what they have on the field and they are letting the chips fall where they may in what is simply an imperfect system.

And I can promise you that the scrutiny of the officials over these blunders is only going to make the calls worse in the future because now these guys are worried too much about how the rules are written and how much the ultra-slow motion replays from multiple angles will expose them. And frankly that's why the more complex the rule book gets, the more mistakes are going to be made by these crews. If they were going to have a stop gap booth official to rule the roost of every NFL game, then he/she needs to be unafraid to make the call as the cameras verify it and let the official who made the errant call take his lumps.

We just want them to get the calls right as often as humanly and technically possible.

I get what you are saying, and I was on this side right after the NFCCG, but the evidence is there of the refs super bias towards LA throughout the entire game. It's been well documented on this site, so I'm not going to recap it, but IF... and I repeat IF there was a fix in place or at the very minimum extreme bias, there certainly is supporting evidence for it all game long, especially in the 2nd half. However, none of it was enough to stop Brees until the famous no call. I am not sold on there being a fix, but I'm not 100% convinced there wasn't one either. I'm about 90% to 10% in favor of just extreme ref bias vs a fix. Which at any point in the past I would have laughed off a fix at being 0% likely. There is simply too much money being spent in LA to not think that someone would try to influence the outcome.

Now, logically speaking, I just don't see a grand league owner or Goddell driven fix. I will say, however, that someone in charge told refs to keep flags to a minimum in the playoffs and that completed played into whomever hands wanted the outcome to be swayed a certain way. That much is clear as day. The permission was given from above and someone maximized their opportunity to use that against us. Again, I 90% think it just played into the refs' bias and 10% think they could have been paid off to force bias.

 

[David Robbins]

The Ref was standing right behind the play and looking dead at it. It wasn't the speed of the play. Else, how is it that 70,000 stadium fans, all the coaching staff, and everyone watching on tv could see it? That was a joke. They were paid off. Plain and simple.

 

[Bill]

I get what you are saying, and I was on this side right after the NFCCG, but the evidence is there of the refs super bias towards LA throughout the entire game. It's been well documented on this site, so I'm not going to recap it, but IF... and I repeat IF there was a fix in place or at the very minimum extreme bias, there certainly is supporting evidence for it all game long, especially in the 2nd half. However, none of it was enough to stop Brees until the famous no call. I am not sold on there being a fix, but I'm not 100% convinced there wasn't one either. I'm about 90% to 10% in favor of just extreme ref bias vs a fix. Which at any point in the past I would have laughed off a fix at being 0% likely. There is simply too much money being spent in LA to not think that someone would try to influence the outcome.

Now, logically speaking, I just don't see a grand league owner or Goddell driven fix. I will say, however, that someone in charge told refs to keep flags to a minimum in the playoffs and that completed played into whomever hands wanted the outcome to be swayed a certain way. That much is clear as day. The permission was given from above and someone maximized their opportunity to use that against us. Again, I 90% think it just played into the refs' bias and 10% think they could have been paid off to force bias.

I'm sure there are a fair number of folks reasoning this way.
But a fix is a fix. It's not a bias or a favoring of one team over another.
Either there was a planned out order from the top, or just some officials who had some desire to see one team prevail over another. In some cases such a 'personal leaning' could cause an official to be more focused on the errors of one team over another. But this is still not the same as a fix.

The problem with the deliberate fix scenario is that it's not only hard to makes such 'fixed' calls at specific times during the games (which may be easily over-ruled by instant replay), but it has to be calls that lead directly to adding points for one team and/or removing points from another team.

Additionally the league has a lot more to lose in revenue if it was ever revealed that the NFL has the same level of integrity as the WWE. What we have been witnessing is flubs and mistakes by imperfect human officiating crews. Nothing more; nothing less. And what is complicating these 'flagging faux pas' is that it is becoming harder and harder every day for a NFL official to do his job well due to rules interpreting.

Few people on the planet can positively define things like 'roughing the quarterback', 'making a completed catch', 'unnecessary roughness', and/or 'hitting a defenseless player' to name just a few. In the NFL's attempt to sell itself as "The League Who Cares", it has become the organization that forgot what made it popular in the first place. And now it is widely considered to be the league that wants to support only the biggest markets.

I'm all for protecting players and removing cheap shot artists from the league. But football is a rough sport and always will have a chance of injuries to players at any position. But neither the players nor the officials are completely sure of what their role is anymore, because the rules keep changing. And as long as the critical 'eye in the sky' keeps showing the replays of where the officials messed up in these games, it will make them question whether they are doing it right each time they pull the yellow hanky out of their pocket.