The only call I remember benefiting from was the PI against Kelce early in the game. If we are keeping score on bad calls, they got the better end of that stick 10-1.

That said, if we had safety help on Chase, we likely are bitching about the officials after a win.

But easy enough to be handled by part-timers. Just sayin...

Whether the refs are bad by design or they’re just bad at their jobs doesn’t really matter. The result is the same, and we’ll all keep watching.

Give it a few days and we’ll be ready to get hurt again.

Stop it. Without a level playing field, nothing else matters.

Wait, what?

Oh I get it, that fell under the "at that moment we decided to let them play" heading...

I wouldn’t say the NFL ‘rigs games’, per say.

I would say there was a LOT of questionable officiating at the end of that game (all which seemed to work in the Bengals favor) and also the ‘hold’ on the Pringle return that had nothing to do with the play. Yeah, it was technically a hold, but you could call a hold like that literally on every play. The refs usually swallow their whistle their and this time they chose not to and I honestly believe it was because they were trying to keep the game ‘close’ going into the second half. NFL didn’t want a blowout in the first half, which is what it would have been had that TD counted.

So ‘rigged’ ? No. Outcome ‘influenced’ heavily by officials? Most definitely.

How often do refs really decide to "swallow their whistle" on Chiefs kick returns? We get flagged frequently on those.

Influencing is rigging. I don't understand how some of you are trying to blur the line here.

Definition of rigged
1: manipulated or controlled by deceptive or dishonest means

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rigged

One team is allowed do over after do over when they don’t convert and the other gets a bogus holding call that puts them in a very difficult 3rd and long situation. We scored 3 points in the second half in large part because our possessions were limited due to one sided officiating extending the bengals drives.

I don’t believe in things being rigged but there’s no question that one sided officiating swung the momentum of that game.

I think there's a substantive difference between rigging a game and influencing the outcome of a game. I think the NFL (the corporation) does what it can do, subtly, to increase profits.

I don't think that's entirely true.

If the NFL tells the refs to crack down on shenanigans during the SB because they don't want the same chippy stuff as the AFCCG, and the refs completely botch their instructions.... I would certainly say the NFL influenced the game, but wouldn't necessarily say they rigged the game. Of course, if they handed down those instructions with any intention of changing the outcome of the game, then it's influencing and rigging.

And that's what most of the debate comes down to.... those who think it's a relatively wide spread effort with refs -- and some even say players -- versus a situation like I mentioned.

And 99% of the time, questions about how the NFL keeps it all a secret and so forth are completely ignored by those who believe it.... and the other 1% it's vague bullshit that never really answers anything.

It's the same ****ing thing. ****!

0h man..it was unreal how much they allowed him to be held.

He got clotheslined more than a jobber against Bradshaw in his Acolytes days