14 weeks in, anything new?

I conceived a theory yesterday; the NFL is a social experiment in which a popular entertainment source is testing how many things it could fuck up before the public abandons it. It really is fascinating. The officiating is a huge issue; humans are not perfect but the incompetence shown by these guys who are supposed to be highly trained is mind blowing. The NFL has butchered the domestic violence issue. They had butchered the Kaep/kneeling issue, and they have a legitimate problem with officiating; yet nobody is giving up the game and they are still crushing ratings. This has to be some sort of elaborate study on how many things they can mess up without losing public interest
 
You're exactly right D-Woww. Its getting so frustrating to watch this game anymore. I haven't given up yet but at this point its more of a bad habit than something I enjoy. At some point the switch will flip and I'll realize that the game I grew up loving is simply gone and not worth chasing anymore.
 
Throughout the gambling forums, as far back as I can remember, the topic of games being fixed has been brought up. Yesterday was the first time I considered it a legitimate possibility. When the referees did not award the Eagles the ball after the fumble of the opening kick off, I thought it was the worst call I have ever seen, literally, no exaggeration. I am not sure if the offensive PI call on Goedert topped that, but it certainly became 1a. Just brutal. And you can't argue that the Cowboys in the playoffs does help the NFL.
 
Teams tanking.

Jags

Teams still fighting

Raiders
Giants
Bills
Jets

Altho maybe Raiders got that big win kinda like Jax vs Indy and then flop week after?

Skins look freaking done. Looks like locker room not too inspired by mr butt fumble lmao. To lose like that to Giants is insane

Some offenses gotta be auto tt under consideration? Cards, Jags. Talking about teams with a hugely banged-up o line, Cards dont have an nfl-ready qb, Jax doesn‘t have an nfl-caliber receiver. Good rb but futile without blocking
 
D-Woww said:
Throughout the gambling forums, as far back as I can remember, the topic of games being fixed has been brought up. Yesterday was the first time I considered it a legitimate possibility. When the referees did not award the Eagles the ball after the fumble of the opening kick off, I thought it was the worst call I have ever seen, literally, no exaggeration. I am not sure if the offensive PI call on Goedert topped that, but it certainly became 1a. Just brutal. And you can't argue that the Cowboys in the playoffs does help the NFL.
Click to expand...

NFL def pursuing business interests. Its about making money through entertainment. Its legally allowed to be unfair with refereeing wasn‘t there a court case that ruled accordingly?
 
Lets' put an end to the fixing games theory right here...

Fixing games is illegal.

See Tim Donaghy.

Incompetent 70 year old men with cataracts trying to make split-second decisions on 25-year-old freaks of nature athletes is a bad, bad, bad idea.

NFL owners care about one color, green. They're making money...it's supply and demand. Until there's anything else in this country for sports that touches them, they aren't going to change a damn thing.

Controversy and people talking about this stuff is what keeps this sport popular. Add in fantasy, and merchandising and the millions they make from TV and sponsors...NFL owners just keep getting richer with little to zero effort.

If these NFL owners ran the businesses that got them rich the way they run their respective franchises, they'd be homeless, poor as shit and drinking Mad Dog 2020 from a brown paper bag. They simply don't care because it's not financially beneficial for them to care about some of these things.
 
The reason we know there is an issue with the officiating and fixing, whether it be due to gambling or league edict is that the anomalies happen far too often. What I mean is that there are going to be random games where there are bad calls that all line up against one team. But when you see it happen at the rate it occurs in the NFL, you have to wonder what the hell is going on. I watched three games yesterday fairly closely ... Bills/Jets, Carolina/Cleveland and Steelers/Raiders (omg did I really watch those three games?). The Cleveland hosting Carolina game was as close to being actual evidence of game fixing that you will ever find. It was so horrible that it boggled the mind. The Raiders were called for 13 penalties for 130 yards vs the Steelers having 2 for 14 yards. The calls were a little better in the Steelers game as some of those were blatant facemasks by the raiders (and damn the steelers for being gifted a 116 yard advantage vs the lowly raiders and finding a way to lose outright. amazing).

the bills/Jets game was also horribly officiated but there didn't appear to be a team bias to it.

And what I am hearing from people about the Dallas game is that it was horrible.

Now .... I haven't watched all year but if this week was extra bad in lopsided officiating ... you have to ask yourself why? Were it due to gambling influences, the problem would be pervasive every week. If the problem is due to league wants it makes more sense as late year is when the league will get involved to get the teams on the edge in that they want and the teams on the edge out that they don't want.

And if that is happening on any level, then we need to make sure that the league gets no gambling revenue ever or this will get much worse.
 
Haha well done scarfy. This is what happens when the crazy world of conspiracy theories and nutjob superstitious gamblers collide and put it all together in a forum. Nothing worse than losing money than doing it while listening to some freak complain about it being fixed. It's only really fun to fuck with those guys occasionally, when winning.

Like playing cards at a casino and listening to bad luck/skill guy complain about bad luck or house fixing. Ever wonder why some guys want their own BJ table?
 
The problem is that many of the rules in football are so subjective and not objectively defined like in basketball and they keep making the subjectivity worse like with the targeting shit.
 
It isn't new. It is not a conspiracy theory to think there is game fixing.

It has happened a TON in world soccer
It has happened a TON in both College Football and College Basketball
It has happened several times in the NBA
It has happened several times in major league baseball
It has happened in Tennis quite a bit

All of the above instances are from documented cases .. it isn't a debatable thing. Game fixing happens. Period. To think otherwise is to be in make-believe-land.

So why would the NFL be immune to it?

The important question to me would be the form of the fixing in the NFL. If it is league edict, it is a problem.

In the NBA have you ever noticed that when a team gets a strong hold of a series the team that is behind tends to get beneficial officiating? It has been happening for a few decades now, noticeably. It cannot be coincidence. I suppose you could argue that the teams that ar ebehind get more aggressive attacking the hoop but eh .. so why would that be? My point being, league edict is a bigger threat than rogue officials like Donaghy.

Don't let the leagues get their hands on gambling profits.

Probably good to bet with the steam now but if the leagues get involved, the opposite might end up true.
 
Remember when poker players used to say there was no cheating going on at the online sites?? hahahaha uhhh ya they look stupid now.
 
KJ said:
Haha well done scarfy. This is what happens when the crazy world of conspiracy theories and nutjob superstitious gamblers collide and put it all together in a forum. Nothing worse than losing money than doing it while listening to some freak complain about it being fixed. It's only really fun to fuck with those guys occasionally, when winning.

Like playing cards at a casino and listening to bad luck/skill guy complain about bad luck or house fixing. Ever wonder why some guys want their own BJ table?
Click to expand...

KJ, I am not going full on truther here, but isn't it your attitude, immediately disregarding any possibility that it could be happening, that allows it to be possible? I was 4-0 with my bets yesterday so I'm not whining because I lost money, although my team essentially had its season ended because of the zebras. While it is obnoxious when some idiot is shouting fix every time they lose a bet, its not like fixing has never occurred in pro sports before. I'm not insisting I am right and there were fixes in play yesterday, but I am saying that I think it is short sighted to just blindly brush it off as something that could never happen the way you are.
 
I also don't necessarily think it is some diabolical plan designed to screw bettors. For instance, the Eagles Dallas game, I don't think Roger was like "make sure dallas covers" but I do think it is very reasonable to think that, in some way, shape or form, it was insinuated that a Dallas win, and a continuation of the Dallas resurgence and playoff run, would be best for the league. And I think the refs keep that in mind.

Look at these man:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1071881035061886976

That was after a review!

And then this:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1071932683570290688

This is either the refs having a side, or admittedly it is very possibly gross incompetence, but how can refs at the highest level be this bad?
 
I am saying that this concept that the NFL cares enough to actually fix games in order to get Dallas into the playoffs as opposed to another team, in the interest of ratings, is ludicrous. It's a multi billion dollar business that couldn't give a fuck about viewers. That's obvious. You said as much in your original post...people will watch no matter what they throw at you. If anything, story lines are a media thing, not an NFL thing, for headlines and now all to often, clickbait. It. Is. That. Simple.

I get that there will be fixing, the lesser the league, the lesser the salaries whether it's players/management/officials, the more likely it is. Tennis is the easiest as it only takes one player to tank, not a team. Golf could be but there's just too much money for even mediocre golfers to be made professionally unlike tennis.

To think the NFL has this edict that VK is suggesting makes no sense. Can't see any reason they care about story lines and it's shown over the years, popular teams and story lines are punted from the playoffs every year. NBA, easier to fix a call here/there but so much money there it would be the officials, not the "Stern" phone calls always referred to. People will watch. Smaller ratings still are high ratings. And that's coming from me, a Suns fan, who witnessed one of the most atrociously called games BY DONAGHY in the playoffs against the Spurs that likely cost the series.

It would be easy for me to call fix after that game but it's gotten to the point that it happens every game anymore, it's eye rolling, it's not humorous and maybe eventually it will, like all other conspiracies, lend credence to people realizing they may well have something more important to do than deal with this stuff. Once we lose entertainment value, we will stop watching and spending money on it.

Essay complete.
 
I call bullshit as a Raider fan.

After Al Davis sued the league he and the Raiders got fucked repeatedly. Everyone knew it. It wasn't a hidden thing. So don't try and tell me league edicts don't happen. They do.
 
RetroVK said:
I call bullshit as a Raider fan.

After Al Davis sued the league he and the Raiders got fucked repeatedly. Everyone knew it. It wasn't a hidden thing. So don't try and tell me league edicts don't happen. They do.
Click to expand...

And on the other side look what happened for the Colts with Manning after Bill Polian bitched
 
If the league cared enough they would have forced a sale years ago, they've shown the ability and power to do that. Similar to the NBA.

But they could have contracted them. Crime rate would go down tenfold if that team didn't exist. But the NFL cares not a bit about society as a whole so as is proven over and over again. Can't get rid of that brand though.
 
If you are saying that you don't think there was a league effort for Raiders to get bad calls after Davis sued then we can quit discussing it now because you are delusional.
 
The tuck rule was correct!

In all honesty, why would they get calls when the owner sued the league? That's not a conspiracy or fixing unless you call common sense, everyday business practices fixing. It's just business, you don't bite the hand that feeds you.

And you know full well he'd just be expelled today for the ownership fraternity.
 
It didn't go to shit .... we are discussing game fixing ... which should be discussed on a gambling forum.

But some things I saw ...

Goff seems uncomfortable with the blitz
Goff seems uncomfortable with the cold
Take the run away with run blitzes that turn into pass rushes and make Goff beat you while under pressure is the best game plan I have seen against their offense.

The Cardinals offensive line injuries makes their offense incredibly bad. Rosen has zero time. fitzgerald is one of my all time favorite players but he was never super fast and has now lost a step beyond that.

Steelers offensive line just isn't what it was the last bunch of years. Zero push against the Raider front yesterday. Steelers struggled in short yardage all day and not due to any rb issues. They just got blown off the ball

Jets offense is the least imaginative in the league. They put their quarterbacks in horrendous positions on third downs due to predictability.

FG and Point after TD kicking continues to be an issue in this league. College kicking seems to be better than ever so not sure why there is a fall off here. Perhaps we just preceded now with an era of great ones?

Josh Allen is faster than I thought.
 
I wasn't talking about the tuck rule (which was just an awful call). But you can look at that game in total to see what I mean ...

As the Patriots did not commit a single offensive or defensive penalty in the Tuck Rule game. I am sure that is just hoodie discipline
 
VK pitt‘s o-line ranks 4th in power rate 7th in stuff rate. I think it was just the situation of travel and lack of focus
 
Cards even resorted to having Rosen do a one step drop-from shotgun-and d line was still in his face

I've witnessed some ridiculously bad Cardinals teams when they played at Sun Devil and got 10+ penalties a game (a product not of the team name but how shitty the team continuously performs) and safe to say this is by far the worst offensive line I've ever seen them field. Give Rosen credit, regardless of the 20+ snaps he's had to field that hit the ground first and the terrible protection, he still steps up in the rare pocket and takes his licks, gets back up. When he's got time, his throws are ridiculously sharp. Once he learns a little risk management and gets a couple weapons, he'll be very good me thinks.

Josh Allen will not be able to run like this and sustain an NFL career for long, see Wentz. Enjoy the run (no pun) but gotta learn some pocket presence at some point. He should always be able to scramble but that quickness will wear down very, very quickly.
 
If the Jets hire a good GM and an offensive head coach Sam Darnold will be a star. If they keep Maccagnan and let him continue to butcher draft after draft as well as pick the new coach they will destroy the best Jets QB prospect since Namath.
 
KJ said:
Cards even resorted to having Rosen do a one step drop-from shotgun-and d line was still in his face

I've witnessed some ridiculously bad Cardinals teams when they played at Sun Devil and got 10+ penalties a game (a product not of the team name but how shitty the team continuously performs) and safe to say this is by far the worst offensive line I've ever seen them field. Give Rosen credit, regardless of the 20+ snaps he's had to field that hit the ground first and the terrible protection, he still steps up in the rare pocket and takes his licks, gets back up. When he's got time, his throws are ridiculously sharp. Once he learns a little risk management and gets a couple weapons, he'll be very good me thinks.

Josh Allen will not be able to run like this and sustain an NFL career for long, see Wentz. Enjoy the run (no pun) but gotta learn some pocket presence at some point. He should always be able to scramble but that quickness will wear down very, very quickly.
Click to expand...

Good luck to your team and Rosen when they hire Bowles as the next head coach.
 
brewers888 said:
Good luck to your team and Rosen when they hire Bowles as the next head coach.
Click to expand...
Ha they already regret not having an offensive minded head coach. Bowles was a very good DC here, was voted Coordinator of the Year or something like that in 2014. Defense was fun to watch.
 
KJ said:
Ha they already regret not having an offensive minded head coach. Bowles was a very good DC here, was voted Coordinator of the Year or something like that in 2014. Defense was fun to watch.
Click to expand...

It was a fluky season as his defenses have pretty much sucked since then. There have been rumors that Bowles is still well liked there and that he might be in play to get the head coaching job after Wilks gets canned after one season.
 
VirginiaCavs said:
VK pitt‘s o-line ranks 4th in power rate 7th in stuff rate. I think it was just the situation of travel and lack of focus
Click to expand...
Then i will edit.

Pittsburgh lacks leadership and mental focus in must win road situations with travel. They are weak sauce in the brain. When your locker room leader is a rapist, it makes it harder for him to successfully call out his receivers without them resenting it and in these spots the Linemen will forget how to block while they think about something else unrelated to the game of football or what they are doing that day.

Better?
 
D-Woww said:
I also don't necessarily think it is some diabolical plan designed to screw bettors. For instance, the Eagles Dallas game, I don't think Roger was like "make sure dallas covers" but I do think it is very reasonable to think that, in some way, shape or form, it was insinuated that a Dallas win, and a continuation of the Dallas resurgence and playoff run, would be best for the league. And I think the refs keep that in mind.

Look at these man:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1071881035061886976

That was after a review!

And then this:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1071932683570290688

This is either the refs having a side, or admittedly it is very possibly gross incompetence, but how can refs at the highest level be this bad?
Click to expand...

The PI call was horrible, but if the refs “had a side” how can anyone explain the equally horrible roughing the passer call on the next play where the DE literally tackled Wentz by an ankle? It’s just gross incompetence. Anyone who’s paid attention has said the same thing about NFL officiating for close to a decade.
 
KJ said:
If the league cared enough they would have forced a sale years ago, they've shown the ability and power to do that. Similar to the NBA.

But they could have contracted them. Crime rate would go down tenfold if that team didn't exist. But the NFL cares not a bit about society as a whole so as is proven over and over again. Can't get rid of that brand though.
Click to expand...

When did the NFL force the sale of a franchise? Serious question, I’m not sure I remember that but feel kinda stupid for not remembering right now.
 
VirginiaCavs said:
Marrone consistently turns teams around—Syracuse for instance. It just goes to shits afterwards
Click to expand...

He is a pretty consistent mediocre .500 coach that doesn't understand offense at all. I think Marrone is a better version of Jeff Fisher. If he had any sense at all they would have replaced Bortles last offseason.
 
RetroVK said:
It didn't go to shit .... we are discussing game fixing ... which should be discussed on a gambling forum.

But some things I saw ...

Goff seems uncomfortable with the blitz
Goff seems uncomfortable with the cold
Take the run away with run blitzes that turn into pass rushes and make Goff beat you while under pressure is the best game plan I have seen against their offense.

The Cardinals offensive line injuries makes their offense incredibly bad. Rosen has zero time. fitzgerald is one of my all time favorite players but he was never super fast and has now lost a step beyond that.

Steelers offensive line just isn't what it was the last bunch of years. Zero push against the Raider front yesterday. Steelers struggled in short yardage all day and not due to any rb issues. They just got blown off the ball

Jets offense is the least imaginative in the league. They put their quarterbacks in horrendous positions on third downs due to predictability.

FG and Point after TD kicking continues to be an issue in this league. College kicking seems to be better than ever so not sure why there is a fall off here. Perhaps we just preceded now with an era of great ones?

Josh Allen is faster than I thought.
Click to expand...

As far as kicking, moving the XP back has clearly had the impact the league was looking for. It’s better in college because they still kick from the 9 yd line. I don’t think FG kicking is better, or more consistent in college.
 
jedi ninja said:
When did the NFL force the sale of a franchise? Serious question, I’m not sure I remember that but feel kinda stupid for not remembering right now.
Click to expand...
Not in the official way the NBA did but Richardson selling the Panthers was essentially forced. It would have been if he didn't agree to do it
 
VirginiaCavs said:
8 wins in second year at Cuse
first winning season in 10 years with Buffalo
Took Jags from losing to AFC champ

Yes. Lol.
Click to expand...

The Buffalo thing had little to do with him and they went 6-10 in his first season. It could also easily be argued that Jax didn’t either. He’s good at catching lightning in a bottle for one year once in a while (not really a skill). That’s it. He’s not a good football coach and it seems that everyone knows it.

I guess the point is that teams win in spite of Marrone, not because of him. What cost Jax the playoff game last year vs the Pats, being a Jags fan yourself?
 
Last edited:
jedi ninja said:
The Buffalo thing had little to do with him and they went 6-10 in his first season. It could also easily be argued that Jax didn’t either. He’s good at catching lightning in a bottle for one year once in a while (not really a skill). That’s it. He’s not a good football coach and it seems that everyone knows it.

I guess the point is that teams win in spite of Marrone, not because of him. What cost Jax the playoff game last year vs the Pats, being a Jags fan yourself?
Click to expand...

REFEREES

And yes, I know where you're going with that question, a more aggressive game plan would have helped in hindsight although isn't that why Atlanta lost in the super bowl? Like taking that sack to get out of field goal range?
 
jedi ninja said:
The PI call was horrible, but if the refs “had a side” how can anyone explain the equally horrible roughing the passer call on the next play where the DE literally tackled Wentz by an ankle? It’s just gross incompetence. Anyone who’s paid attention has said the same thing about NFL officiating for close to a decade.
Click to expand...

I agree the call was soft but I think I was reading that it is, by the book, a penalty.

also, it seemed like res may have known they were gonna hear it and tried a make up call. IDK, but oen doesn't excuse the other. one was 15 yards the other was a game tying td
 
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