Tainted

Is the upcoming Super Bowl on the first Sunday in February tainted?  If one were to ask a New Orleans Saints fan, the answer would be an unqualified "YES!" New Orleans lost, in overtime, to the Los Angeles Rams.  But, it was with less than two minutes remaining in regulation that a penalty non-call occurred--an interference call against a Ram defender was clear but not called.  One can understand and give benefit of the doubt that in real time it may have been difficult to make the judgement on interference, but what should not have been difficult was that there was also two other penalties: face-guarding, interference, and helmet-to-helmet contact.  Worse, photos show at least one referee looking directly at the play.  Is this simply another situation where the NFL makes sure it gets the teams it wants in a Super Bowl?

Missed call in New Orleans showing helmet-to-helmet and interference

The NFL likes large game and television audiences, and thus they generally like big-market teams. While the Rams are back to the LA market, after a long absence; the Patriots are once again present.  I watched the Saint-Ram match up and what struck me was that there was at least one other similar interference not called slightly earlier on the Ram defense; plus, a Ram linebacker had at least three helmet-to-helmet hits in the second half that were also not called.  New Orleans did have some bad play calling just before that last non-call play that may well have cost them the game (passes that went incomplete instead of taking more time off the clock with runs), so it is not all on the officiating crew.

No explanation necessary

I did not watch the Patriot-Chiefs game, because, well I already knew the outcome.  Last year the Philadelphia Eagles beat the New England Patriots, and the NFL will wish to make all things great again in Belichick-Brady Boston by having the Patriots beat the Rams. (With this theory, Philly needed to win to avoid claims of the game being rigged.)  What Bob Kraft has on Roger Goddell, I do not know.  From what I understand there were bad calls in the Patriot-Chief contest too.  Let me point to one example:  Patriot apologist Bill Barnwell writes for ESPN, and on January 18, before the American Conference Championship game, he had an article on Patriot Myths verse Realities.  It has long been believed in the NFL that a defender cannot breathe on Tom Brady without getting called for a penalty.  Barnwell, in his estimation says that is a myth, by looking at roughing the passer calls on Brady compared to other quarterbacks.   The problem is, his metric is wrong.  One cannot tell player intent at holding back when they get close to breathe on Brady by not risking a breathe-on-Brady call.  No one can tell me that Clay Matthews, after getting a series of roughing the passer calls in the first few games of the season did not then hold back in his style of play.  I think the same happens to a large degree with defenders on Tom Brady.  After the AFC Championship game, even Patriot apologist Barnwell noted that a call against a Chief defender for roughing (which you can see here) was not at all a  personal foul or roughing call (no hit to the head as ruled), and even Barnwell noted this irony given his Jan 18 article.

Deflategate

But, this is not the first time the NFL has ruled to obtain the outcomes it desires.  The first time I came to realize the amount of control they exert was during the Green Bay-Denver Super Bowl match up 21 years ago on January 25, 1998.  With John Elway's career winding down the NFL wanted to get him a Super Bowl victory, but more important they wanted to break the small streak of wins by the NFC.  The week before the game the NFL announced that the week after the Super Bowl television bids would be due.  It was clear to me, at that time, that another win by the NFC would dilute the bids by a network that would predominantly carry the AFC contests.  During the game, it was made abundantly clear.  Of course, what made this all in the realm of possibility was that the owner of the Denver Broncos was in charge of the television network bids for the owners.  The NFC is predominantly made up of teams in the original NFL, which tend to be from larger markets, and where today's NFL realizes the fan bases are strong.  The AFC is not this way.  One example, although the smallest market team, the Packers have a strong fan base, and at an away game at San Diego (when the Chargers were in San Diego), there were more Packer fans at the game than Charger fans.  The Packer are, with the 2019 schedule now set, the only NFL team to not play in London.  One reason is they will not give up a home game, but second, no one wants to play them in London as an away team as the Packer fan base would make it a home game for the Packers.  The intricacies of the NFL.

Steeler Coach Mike Tomlin, a frequent Critic of Headphones in New England

Are NFL owners ready to finally fight back against the meddling, favoritism and downright fraud within the league?  The owner of the Saints want to put replay review of interference calls on the table.  The problem is that in the Saints-Rams game it was a no call.  Will referring be done by watching a television?  And yet, even with all the controversy surrounding the Saints-Rams game, NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell has yet make any comment in regard to the situation, although the player has since been fined over $26,000.  As one Saint player noted, the games is not played by people who are not perfect, or referred by people who are perfect, but what occurred "was outside of that expected and accepted norm."  Heck, even the Ram player admitted to the interference saying he was beaten on the play and figured doing the interference would at least not allow a touchdown.  He was perhaps surprised as anyone to have not been called.  Players and coaches, and even some fans will accept some calls, but this was really egregious.  If the referee missed the interference, there was no way to miss the helmet-to-helmet call.  Either way, it should have been fist down.

This Boston area boy, in a 2016 science project, says the cold temps
affected the balls.  But, why were the Colts footballs not similarly affected?

Many argue that the Patriots are a true dynasty, and the claims against them are all sour grapes. There exists, however, too many unexplained incidences related to the Patriots--how they have won every playoff overtime coin toss; how a call, or non-call, goes their way (think the fumble by Brady, which was ruled an incomplete pass years ago against the Raiders); Or, how opposing teams were called for interference and there was none (think AFC championship game in 2018 Patriots vs Jaguars).  Or,  how opposing teams happen to lose headset communications while playing the Patriots (just ask Steeler Coach Mike Tomlin), much more frequently than at other venues. Have they listened to other teams calls on the sidelines?   For how many years was deflategate actually in practice with the Patriots?  And quite frankly is it still going on?  Not to mention the Patriot videotaping St Louis Ram practices the week before they met in the Super Bowl. Any statistician would find the likelihood of these occurrences to be beyond the realm of the quantifiable as a statistical probability.

Ten year old Boy's science experiment which concluded
that under-inflated balls travel further

While the NFL had to gather experts to study the deflategate issue, a ten year old Kentucky boy won a school science fair, and moves on to district, by proving that less inflated balls when thrown, will actually travel further.  Whether deflategate, or some other issue, it seems the Patriots will have their way.  The Rams will face them as a team tainted by a non-penalty call and not the rightful team to be in the Super Bowl, but then again that is nothing new as the NFL has made sure the Patriots have made plenty of Super Bowls.  Are NFL conference championships and super bowls like the old quiz show "21" on NBC--rigged? Is the Super Bowl tainted?

Images from Google images