Is the NFL rigged?

I voted yes. There a lot of calls that are just so egregiously bad (that's not new), and I know a lot people say it evens out in end, but I'm not so sure I believe that anymore.

 

I don’t think it’s rigged in a vacuum. But they do tend to favor certain teams and players in calls. It’s also cyclical though. We were bitching about the same things with the Pats, Colts and to a lesser extent Seahawks as we are with the Chiefs now.

Roughing the passer and personal fouls on sliding/“late hits” out of bounds needs to be reviewable plain and simple. It fixes a lot of our complaints.

 

Favoritism, for sure. There are too many components for it to be rigged.

 

It is not rigged. It is just a flawed game with too many rules.

In the 1970s or whatever when the sport was growing in popularity these issues didn't matter. But in today's world with 100s of camera angles and billions of dollars on the line, these weird rules that require subjective decisions are disastrous.

** I didn't vote because the option in the poll for not rigged says "its pure", its not pure, nothing is

 

The league is at its best when the Bears, Cowboys, Jets/Giants are good. If it was rigged they wouldn’t let those teams be so bad for so long.

The WWE didn’t let Hulk Hogan get his ass kicked for years at a time

 

True but they don’t mind leaning into narratives. The sport is so huge nationally that even when the big market teams struggle, the ratings are astronomical.

I don’t think it’s some weird coincidence that Taylor Swift ended up dating a guy on the Chiefs…

 

Bet based on what's a good storyline and what's not and you'll have more success.

 

With the conflict of interest they created with their immediate investment in legal sports betting and the complete lack of independent oversight, I don't see how it isn't rigged.

That's not even taking into account the deteriorating state of officiating and the lack of any meaningful conversation about it. The NFL keeps getting exponentially richer and somehow their officiating is worse every single season.

 

I don't think it's rigged but I do think the NFL has leaned into the Chiefs to much which doesn't make any sense considering the NFL doesn't need a star player or a super team like the NBA does. If Mahomes retired next week the NFL wouldn't skip a beat. Can't say the same for the other sports. The NFL also doesn't need specific teams to be successful the way the NBA and MLB do. All 32 teams in the NFL can draw any audience if they are winning.

 

IMO the NFL is directly following the NBA model.

 

I think it's soft rigged. Goodell isn't telling the refs to do anything, but it's obvious which teams winning would generate more revenue for the league. So the refs favor those teams to get on the league's good side so they get promoted, get to ref in prime time, etc.

 

While I’m not saying that the games are rigged, there are times (and games) when it sure looks that way.

 

Yes, but when your market is saturated to the point where its hard to expand, they cater towards finding a new demographic..... millions of chicks who really don't give a shit about football, but are Taylor Swift groupies.... TV ratings up... ad revenue up...

 

Optics vs reality ..who knows?

Didn't vote

And who cares?

Does anyone here remotely believe fans will protest "rigged calls or games" with no shows?? ROFL

 

i think its definitely massaged, there are things that they think will make them money and they try to make those things happen.

 

It depends on how you mean by rigged.

 

Arian Foster said he saw the NFL scripts and that’s good enough for me. When an intelligent, thoughtful player speaks up, you gotta listen.

 

I was going to go there. Completely agree in theory. Viewership dropped dramatically and then all of a sudden, the Feds said OK for legalization across the board. Correlation? It has always made me wonder.

The NFL is getting a huge cut regardless. I'm very jaded and I know it's something that no one will ever be able to prove, but to say that there isn't SOME kind of monkey business going on is short-sighted.

Even look at the cap, which I pretty much have no handle on, except a mild understanding. I've done a lot of reading on it recently, and I'm scratching my head. In other words, it's murky, and there is a lot of wiggle room to actually be dirty in a gray area. It is not nearly as cut and dried as people think.

I always laugh when high rollers get banned from casinos for counting cards or being so fckn smart that they beat the odds on their own merits. What a pile of garbage that is. "You can't do that!" "Uh . . . and you're doing what, exactly?"