When we think of rigged sporting events, we get a mental image of shady businessmen in expensive suits handing over cash-stuffed envelopes. We think of players throwing games, or coaches deliberately sabotaging their team’s efforts.
That’s not happening; at least, I don’t think it is. I could be wrong. But the NFL is certainly influencing the course of the season, and this year it’s as apparent as ever. The question is: If the NFL is rigged, how are they accomplishing it, and to what degree? Let’s see if we can shed some light on the matter.
The Players
Most of us have no problem recognizing stacked decks in other areas of life. We know the house always wins in Vegas, the justice system is slanted toward the rich and powerful, police departments can be corrupt, Wall Street is an insider’s club, and so on across multiple agencies and industries. We want to believe that sports are different. We hope that the NFL, the world’s largest multi-billion dollar entertainment entity, keeps its hands off the wheel, allowing its product to develop organically. But is that logical? No, because it’s a bad business model. And the NFL is first and foremost a business.
But that doesn’t mean the players, coaches, or even the owners have anything to do with the rigged nature of the sport. In fact, I believe it’s the players themselves who throw the biggest monkey wrenches into the well-oiled NFL machine and its preferred narratives. And the players do so precisely because they’re not businessmen, they’re athletes – and athletes are a different breed of human.
This might be hard for anyone who didn’t grow up playing sports to understand, but it’s really hard to cheat in team sports. It’s even harder to throw a game. From our first pee-wee league practice the pressure is on to make the play, to be the hero, to win the championship. We dream of it, we imagine it, and when we’re young we work our keisters off to achieve it. When we don’t measure up, we get benched or quit. Those with the talent and tenacity to win move on and dream bigger, bolder dreams.
It’s the same with coaches. They’ve strived their whole lives to win, both as former players and as lower-level teachers. They agonize over the pain of losses, hold their crying players heads against their own chests, and try to mentor them to not give up. They care about their players’ lives, and their players’ families and careers. For many NFL players, the coaches are the only fathers they’ve ever had.
So saying the NFL is rigged doesn’t just make all of that go away, and for that reason I don’t believe football (or any team sport) is rigged in that manner. A player or coach can’t simply deny a lifetime of hopes and dreams just because a fat cat hands them an envelope stuffed with greenbacks. Maybe some hacks who are past their prime could, but I believe that the front line players – just like the front line cops, election volunteers, and stock brokers, for example – are working their tails off in an effort they believe in. They’ve put in the requisite sweat and tears to get to the highest level and nobody is going to buy their soul for a few pieces of silver. For the players and coaches, a rigged NFL would be the ultimate betrayal. And that may very well be the case.
But if they’re not in on the steal, who’s taking those thirty pieces of silver?
Rigged Refs?
If it’s not the players or coaches throwing the game, then it must be the officials. Right? Maybe. You can certainly make the case.
Kansas City Chiefs vs Baltimore Ravens, AFC Championship Game, Jan 28th 2024
It was no surprise that Lamar Jackson made it to this game. He’s been the darling of the NFL for several years, even when he was a lousy quarterback prior to this season. The NFL has invested millions in the narrative of a black quarterback emergence, and Jackson’s success is paramount to that. For the first time ever, his on-field play matched his paycheck. The fiduciary expectations were satisfied because he’s freakishly talented runner who finally learned how to play QB. (There’s that athlete’s tenacity I mentioned earlier.)
On the Chief’s side of the ball, the NFL had negotiated a pop star/NFL player union that they’ve been nauseatingly playing up all season. I wrote about the Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift partnership previously and there’s little doubt the NFL and recording industry suits wanted Swift on that field, kissing Pfizer’s golden boy in the aftermath while his brother gave viral photo ops holding Bud Light cans. The reason the marketing giants chose Kelce to hook up with Swift is easy: He’s super dumb and insanely talented, and he’s the most likely white boy out there to get to the SuperBowl multiple times, because Mahomes…more on that later.
So the stage was set, but who did the NFL want to win? How was it rigged?
If you watched the game, you probably noticed early on that the Chiefs were about to deliver a death blow to Baltimore by going up two full touchdowns in the first half. Then the Chiefs were suddenly hit with holding calls that stymied several drives. You also probably noticed that egregious holding by Baltimore was ignored, along with Raven Justice Hill kicking Chris Jones across the thigh to block him from getting a safety on Jackson.
Here we had at least five instances of the referees throwing or not throwing their flags to create a close game instead of a ratings-killing three-score lead.
The rigged NFL wanted Jackson on the podium, just like they wanted two black quarterbacks in the Superbowl last year, and got it. All season the sports media played up the Ravens all-black quarterback room, and Lamar losing to a half-white quarterback didn’t fit the script.
Are bad calls just a part of the game? Maybe, but here is a fact: Every single NFL fan can point to a handful of instances where referees calling or not calling penalties cost their team the game. Pick a team and ask a fan. We can give you the chapter and verse from memory.
I believe the NFL is rigged in a subtle manner, and more akin to the wink-wink, nudge-nudge influence exerted upon key individuals than some grand conspiracy, just like with most industries. You don’t need everyone moving in tandem to rig an election; you can accomplish it with a few unscrupulous guys and less than 100 lines of code. You don’t need the entire court system working to usurp the rights of every American; all you need is a strategic ruling from a targeted judge – say, one who fears for his life, or the pitchforks of his community, or maybe one who merely wants his daughter accepted to a coveted Ivy League school. What is a judge, after all? He’s supposed to be merely a referee, remember.
Corrupt prosecutors and law enforcement officers can create just as much damage by sitting back and doing nothing as they can by interjecting themselves into the arena. And so can NFL officials.
As we’ve seen in every level of society, a little pressure goes a long way. And just like low-level government officials, part-time NFL officials are prime for the picking.
Remember how the New Orleans Saints lost the 2018 NFC Championship because an official refused to call a clear pass interference penalty?
Remember how Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes uncharacteristically went ballistic just a few weeks ago when the referees called a chintzy penalty that cost them the game against Buffalo? They lost the #2 playoff seeding along with it. And were fined $150,000 colletively for not keeping thier mouths shut.
I know the Philadelphia Eagles fans remember how a penalty that’s rarely ever called in a normal game affected the outcome of last year’s Super Bowl.
Mind you, each of these calls or non-calls are questionable, but were they deliberate? Did they happen because someone higher up the food chain let the official know what they preferred to see? That is the question we should be asking.
Selective prosecutions and judges’ discretion radically affect the lives of others. When they deviate from the norm, they’re highly suspect, and create smoke that likely means a fire is smoldering beneath the surface.
The Third Period Rule Book
Ice Hockey players and fans are familiar with a term known as the “third period rule book.” Hockey has three 15-minute periods. In the first two periods of the game, the referees call every little penalty, even the ticky-tack stuff that doesn’t really affect the game very much. However, in the third period they traditionally tend to let the little stuff go in order to not disrupt the flow of the game. It’s a system everyone knows and understands, and football has the same degree of nuance.
Cops do the same thing, which is why they rarely ever bust someone for going 55 in a 45 mph zone. To do so would violate the spirit of law in favor of the letter, and sports are no different. If, however, a certain someone wants a certain outcome, it becomes all too easy for them to get a referee to throw a flag they’d normally keep in their pocket. And that’s how the big games are rigged to produce certain outcomes: by altering the standards at whim.
The problem for the NFL (and for the Baltimore Ravens this week) is that often the players get in the way. Nobody told Patrick Mahomes he wasn’t supposed to win this week. And nobody in the NFL front office who was clamoring for a new crop of black quarterbacks hoisting Lombardis counted on him completing circus freak passes and pulling off another upset. Vegas bookies didn’t, and neither did the NFL.
If you think back to 2016 you might recall another rigged game – one where the deck was stacked in favor of another undesirable player. However, like Mahomes, nobody told Donald Trump that he wasn’t supposed to win, nor did the geeks rigging the machines consider how many votes he was about to rack up against Team Hillary. He won the presidency because the guys in the arena are rarely in on the cheat. It’s those in lofty sky boxes, insulated from the deplorable masses, who seek to manipulate the outcomes.
Fortunately for the athletes and the ordinary folks in the cheap seats, there is one thing that the game masters in New York and Washington D.C. can’t account for: the heart of a champion to shove the rigged game back in their faces.
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