Do you think the NFL is "rigged?"

[cosmo20002]

Pretty simple question: Do you think the NFL is "rigged?"

Specifically, do you believe the NFL has a preferred outcome for games AND orders its officiating crews to make calls for/against teams for the purpose of achieving that preferred outcome?

[LoneWolf]

Originally Posted by Halfcan

But when are those penalties called? Are they drive killers that take points off the board-no. Their Oline blatantly holds every play and also they run the illegal pick plays- The NFl want to see pizza boy in the SB and will do whatever it takes to make it happen.

I believe Denver had two TD plays waved off yesterday and at least one of them was in the first half when they were behind and ultimately led to them settling for a FG.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by tooge

Why did the one crew officiate Peyton Manning 8 times this year? There are how many crews? Seems odd that one crew would officiate a team that many times no?

Where did you get this horsecrap from? You're right, it would be odd. Especially since it didn't happen!

You can go through all referee assignments week by week here:

http://www.football-refs.com/2013-crews/week-1/

[TheUte]

Originally Posted by Dayze

Holding and defensive PI are the primary "what the ****" calls / non-calls

That's biggest problem in the NFL now, holding could/should be called on every down, it's way too arbitrarily called.

4th quarter calls need to be reviewable and/or challengeable in some way.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by kcfanXIII

There is a bias towards star players. The holding that takes place in a Donkey game is an example. I've never understood how all that moving around isn't considered a false start when Manning is changing the play the way he does. Especially when the lineman move after getting set. Just once I'd like to see a ref enforce that, and watch the epic melt down that would ensue...

So.....only Denver/Manning does this?

Do you actually watch NFL football?

[loochy]

Originally Posted by TripleThreat

The 40 ppl who voted yes I'm surprised they even choose to still watch football lol if I thought it was rigged I wouldn't even be able to watch it

it can be rigged

who cares

i don't already know the outcome

you watch TV shows

the outcome of those is predetermined

i don't know how you can watch tv shows

[Mama Hip Rockets]

43% of you are buffoons.

[cosmo20002]

A lot of my fellow Chiefs fans seem to thing the NFL is rigged against the Chiefs. I think lack of success has more to do with this:

Starting QBs
2012 Matt Cassel / Brady Quinn
2011 Matt Cassel / Tyler Palko / Kyle Orton
2010 Matt Cassel / Brodie Croyle
2009 Matt Cassel / Brodie Croyle
2008 Brodie Croyle / Tyler Thigpen / Damon Huard
2007 Brodie Croyle / Damon Huard
2006 Trent Green / Damon Huard
2001-5 Trent Green
2000 Elvis Grbac / Warren Moon
1999 Elvis Grbac
1998 Rich Gannon / Elvis Grbac
1997 Elvis Grbac / Rich Gannon
1996 Steve Bono / Rich Gannon
1995 Steve Bono
and so on...

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by thurman merman

43% of you are buffoons.

Yes, but the question is which 43%?

[Setsuna]

Originally Posted by ChiefsandO'sfan

Well maybe if Denver didn't go into a shell in the 2nd half. All they did was run.

Exactly but that's the thing. Everyone and their mother knows Manning runs the offense and the actual HC and OC don't have any real input in how he runs it. Manning wouldn't sit on a lead like that against Tom Brady. I just fail to believe that foolishness.

And when I say rigged I mean making the game exciting for ratings. Not really rigging the outcome but everything in between to get high rating teams back in games and what not.

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by Setsuna

Exactly but that's the thing. Everyone and their mother knows Manning runs the offense and the actual HC and OC don't have any real input in how he runs it. Manning wouldn't sit on a lead like that against Tom Brady. I just fail to believe that foolishness.

And when I say rigged I mean making the game exciting for ratings. Not really rigging the outcome but everything in between to get high rating teams back in games and what not.

So Manning rigged the game?

[Setsuna]

Originally Posted by cosmo20002

So Manning rigged the game?

Comprehension fail. I'm saying he was told to essentially stop being aggressive or better yet, running the offense as usual.

[Nzoner]

Originally Posted by Bump

anything worth that much money will be corrupted. It's a no brainer IMO.

Originally Posted by durtyrute

This, people are acting like this isn't a billion dollar business. Billionaires don't put their money in the hands of fresh out of college kids.

Here's an excerpt from the book Interference by Dan Moldea

One top NFL official says, "We've had owners that have supposedly been friends or associates of mobsters, and when we looked into it they had dinner in a restaurant, maybe four or five times in a year." Nevertheless, the NFL did nothing about these owners who socialized with underworld figures.

Another football insider says that many investigations of NFL owners have ended up in "a black hole" and were never disclosed. "To me," he says, "NFL Security is a special police force that monitors the players but protects the owners. It's one thing to monitor the activities of the players, because they come and go. It's quite another to monitor the activities of the owners. They seem to last forever."

Patrick Healy, the former executive director of the Chicago Crime Commission, told me, "The NFL tries to give you the public Kiwanis Club talk: 'We have very little gambling; we have very little drugs. We have everything under control. We have FBI agents working for us, and whenever any rumor comes out they pounce on it. They discover it. They investigate it.' Actually, the whole thing is really just a witch tale."

Former Senate investigator Phil Manuel, another critic of the NFL security system, told me, "The oldest trick in the world is to hire old Justice Department officials and then make them understand that the security they are to protect is the security of the NFL owners.

"These retired law enforcement guys maintain their ties to their old agencies, and they can then tell which investigations are being done and whether they might be troublesome. When some wrongdoing is ready to go public, the NFL Security people can go to their old fellow workers and say, 'We can handle this ourselves. Give us a chance to straighten the mess out without all the attention your public investigation will bring.'"

Ralph Salerno, the former chief of detectives for the New York Police Department, goes even further. "How does the NFL protect itself with one guy in each NFL city? They do it illegally. The local NFL Security guy takes the local police commissioner, the chief of detectives, and any other important law enforcement official and gives him season tickets and box seats. They get wined and dined and taken out to play golf.

"And then these public employees who are paid with public funds come up with criminal information and turn it over to profit-making corporations, like the New York Giants, the Cincinnati Bengals, and so on. And that is illegal. Do the police do that for every trucking company or every furniture manufacturer? Of course not. It would be illegal for them to do it with anyone. But they do it for the NFL. That whole NFL Security operation that Rozelle [bragged] about is simply an illegal operation."

Welsh defends the current system. He insists that he is a "fact finder" and has never been asked to halt an investigation of any NFL personnel. "And there have never been any roadblocks put up in my path in terms of investigating anything that would have to do with a member club--whether it was a player, coach, or an owner."

That might be true: Warren Welsh and his predecessors have all been men of high integrity. But they have had no final decision-making powers. Thus, the real question is: What have their bosses, the NFL owners, done once they received the results of their investigations?

The evidence is clear that they have protected themselves and their investments--sometimes to the detriment of the sport they represent.

[Start Croyle]

I don't think it's really rigged.

But I do definitely think that they deliberately make favorable calls for some teams/players, or do make-up calls, etc. Maybe not enough to even sway the outcome of a game.

[GoChargers]

IMO, the refs give certain teams and players all the calls, whether it's because of marketable players, storylines, owners that suck up to Goodell, etc.

That to me is rigging, because it's an example of the league directly meddling in the outcome of the game. They aren't always successful, but it doesn't stop them from trying, and that is bad enough IMO.

Just look at the "controversy" over the replacement refs. The media didn't make their big "push" to pressure the NFL into bringing the horrible regular refs back until the Patriots and Steelers were 1-2 and the cash-cow Packers lost on a questionable call. Reverse the teams in the "Fail Mary" game and the media would have made excuses for the refs and chalked it up to the O-line giving up 8 sacks and the defense choking.

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by Setsuna

Comprehension fail. I'm saying he was told to essentially stop being aggressive or better yet, running the offense as usual.

Told by who?