The NFL is rigged … to make sure we watch.
The AFC Championship Game averaged 57.7 million viewers.
Even if each one knew its outcome was inevitable.
Whether the final score of certain games involving Patrick Mahomes and the boyfriend of Taylor Swift is swayed in real time by in-game officiating and replay calls has yet to be determined.
But there continue to be more reasons each week to believe it to be “more probable than not.”
The Commonwealth charged Karen Read with second-degree murder using far less conclusive evidence than we have of Park Avenue putting its chubby fingers on the scale to elevate the success of Kelce and the Sunshine Band.
When compared to The Shield wielded by Roger Goodell, Captain America carries a 12-inch, soggy paper plate.
Ian Fleming famously wrote: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”
That “enemy action” has laid siege to Buffalo. It’s become the NFL’s Leningrad. Complete with Josh Allen frozen at the 1.
The Eagles must achieve perfection-plus to beat the Chiefs in Super Bowl 59. Saquon Barkley could score five TDs and run for 250 yards, and it might not be enough. Philly needs to make this one “too big to rig.”
Barkley’s departure may curse the New York Giants for the next 86 years.
Remember, what the NFL wants, the NFL gets.
This season, the NFL has the Kansas City Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes, the Kelce Family, and her Majesty Taylor Swift back in the Super Bowl.
Goodell & Company could not have scripted it any better.
The Chiefs compiled the ugliest 17-2 season in football history. Kansas City went 12-0 in one-score games. Five wins were by 3 or fewer points. The Chiefs avenged their only loss that mattered on Sunday. KC had not scored more than 30 points this season until the AFC Championship Game.
By the way, Kansas City is 9-10 against the spread.
Sometimes great teams don’t cover.
But the Chiefs are a 1.000 winning percentage when it comes to calls going their way in big games during this run of dynastic dominance.
A phantom roughing the passer call triggered after Mahomes slid against Houston in the divisional round was so egregious that even Troy Aikman and ESPN rules analyst Russell Yurk broke character on live TV.
For the NFL, having Aikman go rogue during a playoff game is the equivalent of the Red Sox losing Tom Caron.
Adam Schefter then cited Mahomes when sharing news that the NFL may add quarterback slides to plays that could be overturned.
The NFL can easily fix this mess:
- Make any play subject to a coach’s challenge for any reason. Each team gets two challenges per game. And reviews have a 90-second time limit. Thus, the obvious missed holding and facemask penalty is cured. As would “15 yards for breathing on Mahomes.” But games won’t be excessively delayed.
- Use technology to determine the spot and forward progress of the ball, not people with best guesses and chains.
- Show the discussions during replay reviews.
- Make all officials available for questioning by a pool reporter after every game.
Having spent the better part of the previous decade defending Tom Brady over Deflategate, one must be intellectually honest here and recognize the incredible talent and success of Mahomes, the coaching genius of Andy Reid and Steve Spagnuolo, and the firm and wise hand of the Hunt Family in managing the Chiefs franchise.
The Chiefs don’t choke. They choke you out.
Mahomes is enjoying the greatest run of any QB in NFL history. And there’s nothing wrong with being the second-best QB of all time.
The Chiefs have become the new standard across all of sport. Lamar Hunt coined the term “Super Bowl.” Now the team that he founded is on the verge of owning it.
The Chiefs’ possible Three-Peat (© Pat Riley) and four Super Bowls in five years means that “The Dynasty” is in peril of being pushed off the summit of Paramount Mountain. This isn’t just Mahomes vs. Brady. Nor is it just Belichick vs. Reid. And it goes beyond the Hunt Family vs. the Kraft Family. It’s all the above. And here, the whole of these items is far greater than the sum of their parts.
Brady, Belichick, and The Krafts will never lose bragging rights. The Patriots beat Andy Reid and the Eagles in Super Bowl 39. They topped Reid, Mahomes and the Hunts in the pre-Super Bowl 53 AFC Championship Game. Brady and the Tampa Bay Patriots demolished Kansas City 31-9 in Super Bowl 55.
Mahomes needs eight Super Bowl rings to seize Brady’s GOAT-ness. Reid could pass Belichick when it comes to coaching victories. And the Hunt Family has four Super Bowl rings, within striking range of RKK & Sons.
Spagnuolo may hold the ultimate tiebreaker in our formula, having masterminded the Giants defense that stifled the 18-1 Patriots in Super Bowl 42.
In the same way allegations (real and imagined) of cheating put an asterisk on the Patriots’ six Super Bowl trophies across 31 fan bases, the Chiefs are on the verge of clinching a similar besmirchment upon their Super Bowl Three-Peat (© Pat Riley) and four rings in five years.
“And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.”
Turns out Taylor Swift was also the voice of Patriots fans for 20 years.
She just didn’t realize it.
Bill Speros (@RealOBF and @BillSperos on X) can be reached at bsperos1@gmail.com