I folded because I'm just not knowledgeable enough about gaming and odds making to get that deep into it.

I'm smart enough to know that isn't my bread and butter here and will simply convolute the point.

And also, people with more knowledge than me about gambling have addressed the line, and I moved on accordingly

It's only simple if it makes sense.

If those refs were THAT terrible...how come all the shit calls went to the Bengals' benefit?

Athletic officiating has been poor for my entire lifetime. This isn't a new phenomenon.

And it will continue to be, because humans are falliable. Players make numerous mistakes in the course of play, but we expect officials to be perfect.

Calls are missed in every game, in every sport, every day.

But it's easier to claim the fix is in rather than accept that shit happens and your team lost.

Again if they were THAT terrible...really just pert near incompetent...how come all the shit calls went against the Chiefs?? Wouldn't they just...suck? And not just suck for one team's benefit??

It's almost like you've never watched sports before.

Again, happens in every sport.

Why does Team A get 6 Power Plays in a hockey game while Team B gets 1?

Why does Team A go to the free throw line 26 times in a basketball game while Team B only goes 10?

Why are the Raiders the most penalized team in football year after year?

Because sometimes, teams are just undisciplined and take stupid/bad penalties.

Hell, the officials could have called MORE penalties on KC than they did Sunday, I recall several instances where I told my wife we got away with no calls - DB's holding jerseys and Wylie (I think) absolutely tackling a pass rusher.

As much as you don't like it, several of the calls that went against us were the right call - but add the few that were poor calls at inopportune times to the others and you have people like yourself that chalk it up to RIGGED.

You're a moron. Calls go both ways all the time. This is you whining like a little bitch. You want to blame someone for this loss? Start with Spags and Fat Andy.

I wish like hell I could find the Dick Butkus story. Yes it is.

Steered is a much better word than rigged.

Like someone mentioned before... in many games, (especially hyped matchups/primtime) the refs provide the rubber band handicap (like racing video games) once a blowout is in order.

Watch any game this weekend that starts to get out of hand. Refs will start tossing flags to make the game closer.

They want close games and drama, they do not want complete blowouts because it deters viewers.... and what is the big money maker in the NFL???? TV contracts.

The Chiefs got some calls in 2019 because it was the greatest story in the NFL. EXACTLY 50 years since the last super bowl... NEW Exciting QB changing the game with no look passes, etc...

I know. It's like it's gone. It's been removed from the internet.

If they "go both ways all the time", why was last Sunday such an exception?

It's okay, I'll wait here while you call me names and figure it out.

Yeah, I saw someone point out 4 calls in the game, but two were pretty obvious. One DPI was horrible, but the whole uncatchable thing is missed a decent amount. And I didn't see the dual holdings, and saw someone say the illegal hands to the face was hard enough that the receiver had to adjust his helmet mid-route. There was also a missed offsides and the encroachment call.

It's a convenient slope that "holding like that happens every play" or other vague rationalizations when it comes to letting them play.

The 3rd down DPI was the worst of it, IMO, in terms of calling a penalty when there clearly wasn't one, minus not seeing the replays of the dual holding calls.

After that, it's just biased reaching to fulfill a theory.

And like I've said in this thread already, I really don't know WTF to believe in terms of if and how games are influenced and to what extent. To believe BlackOps is to believe a pretty widespread conspiracy that most likely involves players, if entire weeks of the season are suddenly rigged with upsets.

End of the day though, we can guess and debate how deep it goes or if at all, but the NFL certainly doesn't help with the total lack of accountability... and it doesn't even matter to me why games are completely ruined, just that they have been.

Sigh.....

Do you remember our game last year when we stomped Buffalo in the AFC championship game?

Do you remember that a lot of people thought our CBs got too grabby and handsy? Hell, the announcers were saying it I rememeber. I'll bet that over at whatever the Bills version of CP is, those fans were saying that the league wanted us to win and let Badger and everyone else grab and hold as much as they wanted.

Meanwhile back over here, we were all celebrating. No thoughts of defense holding and pass interfering.

Point is, like I just said call go both ways. We got away with shit in AFC title game, Sunday, we didn't. Refs called it shitty...I'm not disagreeing with you about that. Happens every week.

You're asking me about why last week happened? Because the refs had shitty calls. No more, no less.

Bigger question is why didn't Spags double Chase? Why didn't we use the 2 high shell defense that teams having been using on us all year long so that we make Cincy go the distance the long way and take away the deep ball. Why didn't Andy let them score at the end so Mahomes could get the ball back?

^^^^These are much better questions as to refs wanting the biggest star in the league to lose^^^^

How do you explain the televised week 16 games? Chiefs routed the Steelers for the entire game. Didn't seem to be any ref action to even that. How about the game that followed, where the Cowboys put up 56 points on WSH? The Monday night game where the Saints couldn't score more than a FG? Just ignore those examples?

Regardless, TV contracts are not dependent on viewership of individual games. That's not how it works.

IIRC, 9 of this week's games had a winning margin of 10 points or more.

8 of those 9 had a winning margin of 17 points or more.