Were I sitting in the board room discussing this as a corporate marketing concern, I would address the list of several valid points in your opening statement. With grace and tact I would express sentimental understanding and empathy for your essay and the validity of your feelings about your childhood.

Then I would offer some tails to the heads side of the coin you have shown. Manning or Brady going out in a blaze of glory with confetti avalanches over a hoisted Lombardi. Ideally they'll cheer for an AFC championship game between the two. This is true.

A true marketing genius sees the value in the underdog winning from a league perspective from my view. A Chiefs championship, going from 2-14 to MVP, inspires hope in 20 fan bases of mediocre and otherwise feces covered teams. Marketing campaigns abound about next season, possibilities, new hope born in the spring....Hell, I'd throw a clip of a newly born fawn standing for the first time into the power point.

Then, I'd jump on the table shout that I didn't date the homecoming queen but I shagged her sister and spike your football into the condiment platter you've been so kind as to provide for our meeting.

Boom. roasted.

One word: Illuminati.

I'll try, but it's hard to stop being an idiot at my age. I've been doing it for far too long.

Something tells me Baltimore would never have won a SB if people in the NFL gave a shit about what city the team was from.

Sorry about the name calling. I've just read several posts over the past couple of days talking about NFL conspiracies and they make this fanbase sound like a bunch of whiners.

There isn't enough reward to warrant the risk of purposely influencing games through league mandates.

Will Vera Lynn be playing in the background for all of this?

I don't like the conspiracy talk, either, and maybe I shouldn't have included it in the discussion since it tends to dominate. I included it because it's a logical next step as football transitions from sport to entertainment, and it's a little squishy as to how far they've moved toward that step.

My intended main theme is that there are no football people running football any more, and I think the sport is suffering as a result. I don't think the current NFL is acting as a steward of the game, and the league is more interested in profit. I mentioned in an earlier post that this might be a natural destiny, and that anything becomes a business when it hits ten digits in revenues. But for me, that's when I start checking out and finding something else to be my passion.

Here's the rub. Football and all professional sports have always been businesses. Football fans are paying customers and teams exist and have always existed to turn a profit. Lamar Hunt was a businessman. It just seems different because the numbers are bigger, but if these teams never made money the league would no longer exist.

Sack up, dude .

I noticed the differences starting with the Tuck rule and letting the Patriots clear an area for the kicker. Most people had never heard of the Tuck rule before that play. Most teams would have been penalized for clearing the snow for the kicker.
9/11 happens and all the sudden the Patriots win the SB.

Lets also keep in mind that the NFL is considered Sports Entertainment as well.

Ahhhh yes...

I call this the plight of modernity: living without illusions without becoming disillusioned.

No easy task.

Their very name and what happened. Patriot...Patriotic....Patriotism....You know those things that this country was built on.

The raiders called time out. There isn't any rule against clearing snow.

What does that mean and why keep it in mind?

The 9/11-Patriots thing is sadly ridiculous. Exactly why does the team name matter? This whole conspiracy revolves around the TEAM NAME.

Did people really tune in because the PATRIOTS were playing? Did people really rally around the PATRIOTS just because of the team name and 9/11?

It's childish nonsense.

That's true. In the days of the old AFL those guys were literally fighting for their existence. And when I say "those guys" I mean owners, coaches and players alike. As a result, the marketing was grass roots. The players were real people who genuinely inter-acted with the fans. Every team had its own distinct personality. It was a world of innovative football, especially in the AFL. And the game of football itself really wasn't distinguished from the business/marketing side - it was one and the same. And real, spontaneous things tended to happen back then - who can forget the famous Jets-Raiders Heidi game? Not even the brightest NFL marketing person could ever design such a stunt these days.

Some time around the late 80's/early 90's, the game started to become homogenized and then, later, sterilized. Instead of marketing being what comes naturally to entreprenuers, the so-called professionals took over. Marketing people love a story. But, the stories have to either be generated spontaneously or they're just re-cycled. I suspect that's the source of some of the OP's frustration. Like the re-cycled stories of the infirm/disabled children. The first few make for "feel good" stories, but after that become a bit obnoxious.

That's why I kind of enjoyed that Steelers coach jumping out on the field the other day. It may or may not have been rehearsed in the guy's mind, but it reminded me of something you might have seen in the old days. Of course, the fines and such imposed by the NFL were kind of over the top...should have just thrown an unsportsmanlike flag and called it a day.

Wrestling is Sports Entertainment. Sports Entertainment focuses on the Entertainment aspect of the business not the Sports part of it.

Stakeholder vs shareholder... or specifically for the NFL, the product and fans vs money. Yeah, there's always the business side of it and they have to make their money, but it can make a HUGE difference whether your focus is in the right place or solely on the money.

And actually, if the focus had only been about money back then, it probably wouldn't exist today. Like ciaomichael said, they were just fighting for relevance... and when you're fighting for customers, that's where your focus is at. You're just trying to make the product the best it can be and attract fans.

Well, now that they have all the customers they'll ever need and make eleventy billion dollars a year, they could focus on the game and fans, but they choose to focus on making 5% more money next year.

It's nothing new... maybe Lamar dreamed of making millions, but back then his passion had to be football, not money. Just look at the differences between Sporting's ownership and any NFL team, or most any (relatively) small company vs most any huge company.

You left out the part about the compass in the stock and a thing that tells time. That would have made it better.

How exactly does NE winning the SB after 9/11 "help" football?

Yea its a good story that can be exploited to some level, but that's all.

No what happened is they lucked into Tom Brady.

CP is a place that 98% of the time screams you must have a franchise QB to win and then makes excuses for bias when the franchse QB's win.

Wow really dude. Did you not see and hear the gushing about how poetic it was that the "Patriots" were in the SB after 9/11 happened to our country? All of the stories that tied the SB as Patriotic to this nation. Have you not noticed the influx of people that that brought into football as fans? The average increase of NFL fans spiked post 9/11. In talking to a lot of people, that are not from nor have ever been in the northeast, that are fans of the Patriots and asking them when they became fans of the Patriots they ALL have said after 9/11 when they won the SB and how justifying it felt for the Patriots to win after what our nation had just been through.

In baseball when a team is caught cheating they get stripped of their championship. In football when a team is caught cheating to win a championship they just get a minor fine and draft picks taken away but get to keep their championship.

Tom Brady was a rookie and was not great by any stretch. The defense, and a very sold running game that the Patriots had at that time is what won that SB.
Depends on how you define help.
Brought a lot of new fans to the NFL. Ended up giving the NFL another QB that most people loved like Peyton Manning. Gave the NFL another rivalry to exploit. Wasn't there some mention of how the fans won't get to see another Manning vs Brady game unless it is in the playoffs.

You're using that term as if it has some sort of official meaning. Professional sports wouldn't even exist if they weren't supposed to be entertainment. Pro wrestling is scripted with a storyline and predetermined outcome. You're saying that's what the NFL is?

Never mind--this really is too stupid to discuss.

WTF? There is something wrong with you.

Remind me of when a baseball team was stripped of a championship for cheating.

What the **** are you talking about? The Patriots went 11-3 under Brady in 2001, including 7-1 in the second half of the season. The offense and defense both finished 6th in the NFL in points (scored for the offense, allowed for the defense) while being 19th and 24th in yards, respectively. The rushing offense was 24th in the NFL in yards per.

The tuck rule was properly called, and had cost the Patriots a game earlier in the season, when it was called in the Jets game. Clearing snow by the players is legal, and having either the Jets or Giants win the Super Bowl would have been more of a direct connection with 9/11 than having the Patriots win it.

As for rivalry, it it was only a product of the NFL officials, don't you think the Patriots would have fallen back into obscurity by now? Instead, Brady is the only NFL QB to have more than 100 more wins than losses, and Brady has reached the Super Bowl in 5 of the 11 seasons he's been the team's primary starter and has reached the AFCCG in 7 of those 11 seasons, while Manning has repeated shit the bed as a playoff QB, becoming the king of the one-and-done.

You need a better brand of tinfoil.

Don't forget the league destroying the Cheatriots' Spygate tapes so that the fans and press could never see the full extent of their cheating.... not to mention slapping Belicheat on the wrist by not giving him a nice long suspension like he deserved.

Brady was definitely a huge part of the Pats first win... but he was far from 2007 Tom Brady at that point. I don't think he even threw for 200 yards in the Super Bowl. He definitely didn't have a lights out game.

People also forget Brady got hurt in the AFC title game, and Drew Bledsoe played QB for most of the game that got them to the Super Bowl. That's completely been lost into history at this point.

Personally, I think that's way overblown in regards to being an advantage.

Disagreed. Clearly they must have gained some major advantage from doing it, because not only were they doing it for seven years under complete secrecy, but Belicheat's assistants have also tried to go back to doing it when they've gotten head coaching jobs (i.e. McDumbass in Denver, Charlie Weis and his laptop at Notre Dame).

What tipped you off? The fact that the owners locked out the players right after signing a new multi-billion dollar MNF contract?

The reality is the owners have a license to print money, and they know it... and they're going to squeeze for all they can. I don't know where the limit is. The popularity of football is through the roof. Look at the lockout last year... a lot of people defended the owners, they needed to make more money. Others just don't care as long as they get football. They'll do anything, pay anything, there's no limit. So the owners have the diehards in their palms... now they can try to branch out and draw more non-traditional football fans. The lockout should've tipped everyone off, but people really don't care. 18 game seasons, Thursday night games, London, LA, 16 teams in the playoffs. They can do all these things and people will still watch, and profits will get bigger. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that's where it's heading.

The Patriots were on the verge of blowing out the Rams in that SB, when Warner tossed a pick-6. That score would have made it 24-3. The officials, however, called a penalty on the Patriots, getting McGinest for holding Faulk. If there had really been a conspiracy to ensure the Patriots victory, they could have just picked up that flag.

There is definitely an advantage. What's more relevant is that the advantage (even being caught) outweighs the punishment.


That being said, the advantage isn't truly that great due to the limited amount of time you have to see the other teams signals and relay back what that means before the snap.

Stealing signs was not the problem, and Ditka, among many, made that clear:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2...gnals-stealing

The issue was about camera placement.

I don't disagree. I'm not into the whole conspiracy thing... sometimes people forget the calls that go against the team the NFL is supposedly "for."

If you were going to get into that though... I think you'd be better off starting with something like the Super Bowl blackout. That was legitimately weird, a very rare event, that certainly appeared to help restore the competitive balance of the game. I think you'd be better off arguing the NFL does things to keep games competitive. I don't think that's the case, but at least it would make sense.

This alone should shut down the conspiracy
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What the hell?
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You nailed it. However, message boards revel in this kind of negativity... it's how they thrive. There is ZERO chance the NFL is rigged, but let the braintrust who post on message boards think otherwise. Crazy.

Never,ever,not one single game?

You are truly naive. An NBA ref has admitted to rigging games, you really think the same shit doesn't happen in other sports?

One individual ref did that. And he wasn't very good at it at all.
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I agree with basically everything Mr. Rainman has stated in this thread. This kind of corporate greed extends far beyond just the NFL too. Seems like every little thing in this country is all about the bottom line and making that extra penny - at ANY cost.

Has a player or ref ever done anything? Sure. But on orders from the league itself? I very, very much doubt that.

Cosmo's "crusade" seems to have started right after his exchange with me and I'm not sure why. I don't think the NFL is rigged.

You might of helped inspire it. Probably because you said something like the cards are stacked heavily against the Chiefs ever going to the SB. You also said there is a reason the Chiefs haven't drafted a good QB and implied it was some reason other than simply bad choices by the Chiefs.

Basically, you're one of the "not rigged, but biased" people, although I'm not really sure what that means. Either the league is directly influencing the game outcomes or not.

The league is directing the outcomes of games, not determining them.

They're manipulating the rules to produce certain types of games, namely high-scoring offensive shows. This inherently favors the teams that are built to play that type of game. Hell, a smart team would do everything it can, within the rules (and maybe outside of them too) to build a team that is built to play that type of game.

Of course, that's not at all the same as rigging games to determine which teams win and lose. I don't believe games are "fixed". The league doesn't favor Manning and Brady, nor does it favor the Broncos or Pats. The league favors, for the most part, good QBs and having a great QB just further emphasizes that.

Stemming from the epidemic of bullying in schools, low self esteem prevention in youth and to prevent adolescent depression due to experiencing losing season things must change. In response to these growing concerns among the modern, typical transgender-american parents and in light of the suffering of Johnathan Martin, the NFL will implement a rule change starting in 2014 where no points are kept in games.

We cannot have players feeling dejected and sad, as these are causing more emotional damage than concussions. Players will also be issued new equipment, which includes 2 flags to be worn at the level of the hip bones.

To further reflect the state of the nation and make fans feel more welcome, the NFL will now only allow 2 hot cheerleaders, 3 average and 5 heavy to obese cheerleaders to better reflect society.

The Broncos offense is fourth in the league in penalties, their defense is 8th...

That's because they're greasy, cheating, chemically altered low blow throwing, leg whipping, ankle breaking shitbricks of such epic proportions that even the Peyton manning funded officials can't overlook the blatant assholishness of the Denver Broncos.

Yeah...but...those are all when the game is over and the outcome isn't in question. Because that's when most penalties generally occur.

/nut

you included four dots at the end -- must mean something...

how many holding/illegal downfield block penalties for that "fair" offense, stud

They get called for those pick plays once in a while. Not enough, though.

I know, right? Several years ago there was a Pitt/SD game (IIRC, I at least know Pitt was in there) where Polumalu recovered a fumble and the officials took it off so the score would stay on one side or the other of the spread.

I remember watching it and thinking, "huh. That was a weird ruling." And then I went to work the next day and my buddy was fuming mad throwing shit in his office because he had money on the game and they changed the last play on some obscure ruling to cover or stay under the spread (I can't remember which).

After thinking about it, that's the most plausible explanation.

In fact, you have no proof whatsoever and your accusation is not evidence.

I just posted this in another thread where someone mentioned this. The Polumalu fumble recovery was from a lateral:

Could be, but it is pretty damning given proximity to the point spread. We'll probably never know.

Tamba Hali finds this stat amusing.

I sure wished there was video of the ref that day,his facial expression was all anyone needed to see,it was basically,"oh shit what just happened."

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I'm sure your memory is accurate. And they did screw up the call.
I think it happened because it was an odd play and they ****ed up. You think it was intentional due because he was on the take from gamblers.

You guys want it both ways--the refs are incompetent idiots and diabolically clever.

I think next year I'm going to write an essay too.

I'll tell the story of how much our family loves football and how important it is at gatherings, the kids game in the yard and watching on holidays. I'll relay the story about the time grandma was carrying the turkey to the Thanksgiving table and was tripped when Auntie Em slid her chair back and hooked her apron, dislodging the golden brown bird from her arm. Half way to the ground, grandpa shouted "FUMBLE" and pandemonium ensued in the scrum to recover.

Under the pile my thumb was broken and someone bit deeply into my calf muscle. Imagine my surprise when grandma untangled the pile of players until my mother emerged from the bottom with my thumbnail in her left hand and the golden brown bird tucked high and tight with 5 points of contact. Her side of the table was awarded the bird, so I went on defense on the pie table.

LMAO

THAT'S THE POINT,they didn't **** up!Watch the video,it was correctly ruled a TD and then taken off the scoreboard.Even the commentator on the highlights says as much.

The end zone official rules it was a TD. He just signals that a player with the ball has crossed the goal line. He's not making a judgment on laterals that he didn't even have a good view of.

When reviewed they saw the illegal lateral. But they made the wrong call on it. The ball wasn't dead and the resulting play should have been allowed.

Again, I think they screwed up. You think it was intentional and the refs were being bought off by gamblers. That's really quite a conclusion to reaach based on this evidence.

Well, they announced the winners of the Super Bowl contest, and I must admit, it took a wild left turn on me.

It's clear that the NFL rigged the finalists to appeal to their market segments. They picked people based on their appearance rather than on the quality of their stories. They put marketing ahead of football, and I really didn't like that.

But then they made a huge mistake. I assumed that they would control the secret public voting to pick the people that they wanted, but I think they actually let it go to a public vote.

America, you voted and it looks kind of like you're racist and sexist. Four of the ten candidates the NFL provided were minorities. Six were white. There were five winners, and all five winners were white. Four of the candidates the NFL provided were women. Only one was selected, and it was the attractive young woman who is clearly a bandwagon fan who had the worst story of them all.

What a clusterf**k this was from a public relations standpoint. It makes me laugh. Someone is going to get fired over this.

http://www.togetherwemakefootball.com/contest.html

Its hard to not root for a father of two with a terminal illness...

Yeah, I've got no problem with the guy getting a trip to the Super Bowl. Better him than the attractive young Hollywood woman who likes the Patriots and Tom Brady "because she likes the logo". :shake: Oh, wait. She got a trip, too. She is the NFL's preferred fan.

With regard to the guy (and the two kids), I'm not a fan of the fact that their entries weren't really based on a love of football, but were more of a pity ploy. The contest was supposed to be about why you love football.

But whatever. I wouldn't go to this Super Bowl if they paid me.

Well, maybe I'd go if they paid me. But I'd bring a book.

I really think you're blowing this out of proportion Rain Man. Yeah, they chose the best stories, but no one is going to get fired over it. It is what it is.

Yeah, some ditz who picks winners based on uniform color or "likes the logo" is way lame... and I'd have to agree that the guy maybe wasnt chosen based on his love of the game.

But this SB should be a doozy, I'm really looking forward to it... top offense vs top defense? thats a storybook matchup... LOVE the part about bringing a book LMAO

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sorry rainman , your feelings are as old as the AFC (close to)

The tooz and I are on the same page. It seems like I'm always trailing him in philosophical thought.