Dude, watching all that tape last week and we were SO CLOSE on so many plays. It really is frustrating.

Watching all those breakdowns last week, I came away a lot less pissed at Andy and the game plan. We had the right shit dialed up on multiple occasions.

If life had given us lemons, we would have made lemonade.

With everything that happened to the Oline, life really gave us shit instead. So we made shitade. :(

I already said, they have intentional or unintentional bias.

They AREN'T paid professionals. They all have day jobs.

Yeah, my theory in this case is perhaps the NFL didn't want the same shenanigans as the Bills/Chiefs game, so they told the refs to watch for retaliations and what not... and perhaps even singling out players or whatever.

That could technically be one sided without a specific conspiracy in place.... the NFL could say one thing to the refs and the refs could take it way too far or whatever.

And in the case of Brady DPIs, to a certain extent I can see Brady throwing it at opportune times more often than other QBs... crying more often about it... and even telling his receivers to specifically initiate contact and do the small things to get calls.

But, even after all of that, it's tough to reconcile.... it takes a lot of incompetence not just for the calls themselves, but for the NFL to never do anything about it.

At the end of the day, the 'why' doesn't necessarily matter when it comes to the horrible calls in the SB, it's the fact that absolutely nothing will be done about it (which of course lends itself to conspiracy talk).... or if Brady outpaces every other QB in DPIs, that should be something the NFL sees and takes steps to figure out why.... and again, whether he's teaching his receivers how to initiate contact and get the calls and what not or the NFL is manufacturing a GOAT, at the end of the day the NFL does nothing about it and it's just another reason their product sucks.

but yet it's still 'ok' in the eyes of the league (and Vegas). (EDIT: What Bearcat said)

Of course it is. Because it's cheap and simple.

It isn't some grand conspiracy. It's just human beings being human beings.

Look at this way.

The officials aren't incentivized in any way to be impartial, to be accurate, or to be unobtrusive.

There's virtually no punishment for "screwing up" and the only reward they get for "doing a good job" is getting to be on all star crew for the playoffs.

In fact, the SB crew was exactly that - a bunch of individuals being "rewarded" for a job well done during the regular season.

If they NFL paid the refs by the same standards that the teams paid players, we wouldn't see half of this crap.

If Fisher doesn't get hurt we probably win the Super Bowl.

That is my feeling as well.

The refs rigged another SB for Brady.

"Woo-hoo, woo-hoo- WE WON!! The refs wouldn't let you score, so we won!! We bought a SB and we're better than you!!" *jumps up and down*


The only reason the NFL had to make it obvious was because if you let Mahomes get close, he's winning. Look at last year.

That's why the flags came out early and often. Don't get it twisted - that Super Bowl was a gift. Enjoy it, because it wasn't earned and it will be decades before Tampa is allowed anywhere near another Super Bowl.

Just like the one they gifted to Gruden (listen to Dwight Smith's comments on that game, btw - fascinating), this SB is an outlier, and had a predetermined outcome.

Dumbass.

Yeah, but it was SO one-sided and obvious.

Like, when Suh punched Mahomes in the face, and Mahomes turned to the ref and held his arms out like, "for REAL!? Where's the FLAG!?" and the ref just turned away...

Yeah. It was like some WWE-style jobbing there, bro.