How The NFL Cheats
Every pro sport has had its battles with credibility. Baseball had the Black Sox scandal in 1919 where the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series for compensation. That event directly changed how MLB has been governed for 75 years. The NBA had Tim Donaghy who threw games as an official but confirmed some of the realities of that era. Either for personal bias or for gambling compensation during that period of the NBA officiating was brutal. And who can forget the 2000 Spanish Paralympics, basketball team? I mean how low do you have to be to fill a Paralympics team with non-disabled players to guarantee wins?
But all of those were teams or people trying to win something. Maybe a ring, maybe a few $1000’s from the local bookie. Players push the envelope and we sorta expect it, but when leagues organize to maximize profits they are really destroying what we (fans) love so much about sports in the first place. In this piece, I will highlight a few examples such as schemes that have denied us champions, fair results and then explain the ways the NFL has taken these lessons to a whole other level with their malfeasance. As no one has made the institutional circumvention of the rules as big a priority as the NFL.
SETTING THE TABLE
I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything. If you want to believe in the Easter Bunny, have at it. The reality is sports is big business and officials, administrators, and players do small and large things to either gain an advantage or push the balance of power one way or the other. And the bigger the stage, the more you have to gain or lose with every decision.
It’s really hard to get (NBA prevented it from being published) a copy of Tim Donaguy’s book, but I read most of it and the detail he shared confirmed things I’d witnessed or fans knew was happening for years. (I was betting on and watching games very closely during that period) It was usually subtle to the casual fan, but if I could bet the bias and win, it was real.
I’ll get to the NFL in a minute
THE HUMAN ELEMENT/HISTORIC SPORTS CHEATING
The Black Sox scandal had such an effect on the credibility of the sport, that to this day, MLB is terrified to change anything. When the technology became available to do a better job officiating or creating a fairer playing environment, MLB decided to just watch and do nothing. And if you think MLB, the players, teams and administration were unaware of steroids (or the current cheating scandal, “foreign substances” to improve grip) and what was going on, you are naive. Everyone knew. I knew and I have nothing to do with Pro Baseball. The theme of this is, “If you have a chance to increase or ascend your pocketbook or agenda, you’ll take it if you think you can get away with it”. Ask the 2017 Astros if they’d do it again and they will show you a World Series ring.
Until the last couple years, MLB refused to fix a small problem. That problem is the credibility of baseball. They have romanticized the “human element”. Which is insane (“human element is a euphemism for, “bad calls”) and nauseating. MLB has the ability to get 99.9% of balls and strikes called accurately. “Accurately” based on the rules of the game. They currently do not come close to that number. Yet, they dont and have not made any changes. Partially because baseball is the ‘horse-drawn carriage on a street of cars’ of the sports business. Partially because they are afraid the UMPS will revolt. Mostly because if they make that big of a change, it breads questions about technology and the game and people might ask, “Why the fuck did we wait so long?”.
ESPN uses a box on most pitches to show if it’s a ball or strike and people are so used to umpires calling balls that are strikes and strikes that are balls that the commentators talk about it openly. “Oh, Kershaw got away with one there” as the ball is a foot off the plate yet the umpire calls it a strike. Hell, they didn’t use replay for 30 years when it was obvious they needed it. Baseball has just decided to live in a bizarro world. The fans know it. It is what it is.
The NBA is a little different, they use it to their advantage. In Tim’s Donaguy’s book he talks about how certain refs hated certain stars and if he saw a ref was calling a certain team’s games, he called his bookie and put down massive bets. The below link can be pushed off as an anomaly, but it’s one of the things that decided whether teams won or lost as the Spurs didn’t cover a game Crawford ref’d for 8 years at one point. In his book Donaghy said “Duncan walked onto the court with 2 fouls when Joey was there”.
In the link below Joey Crawford admits all of it.
I won’t go too deep into it (there are 100’s of youtube videos analyzing it) but the Kings v. Lakers 2002 Game 6 isn’t really suspicious, as much as it’s ludicrous. It benefitted the NBA to have the Lakers not the Sacramento Kings in the finals against the New Jersey Nets. I have never seen comparative data, but one would assume a 20–25% drop off in TV ratings if the National TV audience had a steady diet of Mike Bibby jumpers and Vlade Divac footwork over SHAQ and Kobe. Occum’s Razor is what it is.
Perhaps the most horrible cheating scandal occurred in the 2000 PARALYMPIC GAMES.
FORM WIKIPEDIA
Spain was stripped of their intellectual disability basketball gold medals shortly after the Games closed after Carlos Ribagorda, a member of the victorious team and an undercover journalist, revealed to the Spanish business magazine Capital that most of his colleagues had not undergone medical tests to ensure that they had a disability. The IPC investigated the claims and found that the required mental tests, which should show that the competitors have an IQ of no more than 75, were not conducted by the Spanish Paralympic Committee (CPE).
He went on to say that the Spanish Federation of Sportspeople with the Intellectually Disabilities (FEDDI) deliberately chose to sign up athletes who were not intellectually disabled to “win medals and gain more sponsorship”. After it was confirmed that 10 of the 12 competitors in the winning team were not disabled
I highlighted those as a few very well-established examples, but there are broken rules in every sport, in every country and you’d be naive to think otherwise, with money being such a strong motivator that Spain did what they did. That being said, the NFL has maximized its value through cheating in a way that has made it what it is today. FIFA’s cheating made FIFA members wealthy, the NFL’s cheating has made everyone wealthy.
And the only people who get fucked out of anything are the fans.
Now to the NFL.
I realize I’m going to undermine my credibility by starting here but it’s a mathematical illustration and since I didn’t make up math, it’s a good place to start.
A couple of years ago ethicalskeptic.com used the odds of the Oakland Raiders having the “bad luck” with the officials for so many years in a row to illustrate bias in officiating. The link below is to establish the reality of bias whether it’s nefarious or not. I won’t try to offer bits and pieces of it because it’s detailed and unequivocally decisive. It’s not to prove the Raiders got screwed by the league specifically, it’s to establish that bias is real and the NFL absolutely has the tools necessary to alter games if they so choose.
Personally, I feel the Raider’s persecution is their own doing. They embraced cheating in the 70’s openly and that had to get into the heads of the refs on some level. But, they really fucked themselves when Al Davis stepped on Pete Rozell’s plan and moved the team to LA. Which set off a series of legal battles with the NFL that coincidently coincided with the Raiders being the most penalized team (by far) for the next 40 years statistically.
Penalty rankings for Raiders, by year (small sample)
2019–3rd
2018–14th (Gruden takes over the team and establishes better relationship with the league. In theory)
2017–8th
2016–1st
2015–3rd
2014–9th
2013–4th
2012–6th
2011–1st (Al Davis dies)
2010–1st
2009–6th
2008–4th
2007–2nd
2006–3rd
2005–1st
2004–15th (Raiders were terrible so I guess the league took pity)
2003–1st
You get the picture.
Again, I blame the cause of this on the team’s actions, but that goes back into the early 80’s. Averaging top 3 most penalized teams with different coaches, players, and ownership over the span would require overt effort on the part of the organization.
Consciously or unconsciously bias seeps into your framework and affects how you see the world. We all do it. We all stereotype, and all humans make mistakes.
OFFICIATING IS SUBJECTIVE.
Much like balls and strikes in baseball, hand fouls in the NBA, as well as most NFL penalties are extremely subjective. However, in the NBA and NFL timing is bigger than the penalty or yards penalized.
Because football is emotional, the officials have the ability to motivate one team and demotivate another. You see the body language when a 13 yard run is called back by a holding call. And this is done with complete collusion by the talking heads. Also the 70 year old refs don’t see half of what is going on on the field. And there is no more old boys network than becoming an NFL ref.
This is from 2013, but it illustrates what an insular group the NFL refs are and how “old boys” you need to be involved. Other than the police departments I can’t think of a culture with deeper protectionism built-in.
- Dick Ferguson (deep official in the 1970s and ’80s) and current back judge Keith Ferguson
- Tony Veteri Sr. (head linesman in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s) and current head linesman Tony Veteri Jr.
- Jerry Bergman Sr. (head linesman 1965–1995) and current line judge Jeff Bergman and head linesman Jerry Bergman, Jr.
- Bob Rice (deep official in the ’70s and ’80s) and current umpire Jeff Rice
- Jerry Seeman (referee, former director of officiating, and current officiating observer) and current line judge Jeff Seeman
- Jim Quirk Sr. (former umpire and head of the NFL Referees Association) and current back judge Jim Quirk Jr.
- Ron Baynes (former line judge) and side judge Allen and line judge Rusty Baynes.
- Dick McKenzie (retired line judge) and line judge Dana McKenzie
- Referee Walt Coleman and side judge Walt Coleman, IV
There are several brothers who work or have worked in the NFL:
- Retired referee Mike Carey and retired back judge Don Carey
- Line judge Jeff Bergman and head linesman Jerry Bergman
- Referee Gene Steratore and back judge Tony Steratore
- Umpire Carl Paganelli and back judges Perry and Dino Paganelli
- Head linesman John McGrath and replay official Bob McGrath (who worked as a field judge before his brother John joined the league)
- Side judge Allan Baynes and line judge Rusty Baynes
THE PROBLEM
September 1st, 2006 Roger Goddell took the job as commissioner. At this time games had a similar trend. Teams would get ahead and spend the 4th quarter playing ‘3 yards and a cloud of dust’ football. Good strategy bleeds the clock, predictable. That did not make the tv networks happy.
Almost immediately things changed. It became routine for the outcome of games to be decided in the last possession. This was partially achieved by rule changes, but better is better. And the obvious outcome was still going to happen.
Roger started openly discussing “parity” in the league and everything started to change.
A new trend started with Sunday night’s & Monday night’s games. They tend to see the team with a lesser offense get out to an early lead. This is accomplished by a holding penalty here, or no holding penalty there and POOF! one team is up by 10 pts early.
From that point the odds work in the league’s favor as by spotting the inferior team (really, “inferior offense” as the “rule changes” I mentioned were almost entirely to inhibit the defense) a few extra scores and it forces the more capable team to play with a greater risk factor. Which is also more exciting to the casual fans. The die-hards don’t care how badly the refs screwed you if your team wins. For the most part this is a systemic narrative that favors no one really. Well, no one but the owners as a more captive audience means more money through the lucrative TV deals. And under Goddell’s guidance revenue has shot up.
However, I cannot emphasize the fragility of all this enough. Literally, ‘a hold’ here and a ‘pass interference’ there may provide a handicap that keeps people on the edge of their seat until the end of the (4 hour) game and the networks happy, but we have thrown any semblance of competitive integrity on its ass.
When a team has a new set of downs (1st and 10 yards to go) they have a 67% chance of getting a first down. Should a team lose any yardage on either of the 1st two downs the odds shoot to 30%. I won’t bore you with graphs, but if you punt 7 out of 10 times you have the ball, you have a shitty team, coach gets fired, players get turned over, lose jobs etc. However, if you get a first down 7 out of 10 times you are playing championship football. If any bad call brings the integrity into question, any organized plan to ‘handicap’ one team or to force the dominant team to play more aggressively artificially keeping scores closer, longer, then the entire NFL is complicit in cheating. This means the NFL isn’t a sport, it’s wrestling. And with legalized gambling about to increase the avg. franchise value by as much as a 100%, this could be an issue.
Source for the following data — and a great read-
https://www.sportsinfosolutions.com/quantifying-the-impact-of-penalties/
Allow me to direct your attention to the penalties that are called the most, by far. Holding and false starts. Now, a false start is so obvious no one would use that to influence a game. Watching your first game ever you can see when a player false starts. However, holding is much more subjective.
Without getting too granular, you have “offensive holding” and “defensive holding”. Both carry potentially game-changing consequences and if you isolate a dozen lifetime football fans and ask them, “What is the exact action that is considered a holding penalty in the NFL?”, you get 12 similar answers, but none that are identical nor wrong based on the rules.
Maybe they have acts that will always be called, but miss the others, the two different types based on position have many different variations.
That is a link to the official rules of an NFL game. Please take a moment and explore the absolute vastness which are the rules of the game.
https://operations.nfl.com/the-rules/2020-nfl-rulebook/
Believe it or not, any loyal NFL fans know almost that entire rule book. However, (I’m assuming you took a quick glance) that massive document fails to explain what a “hold” (of either variety) is. Anywhere.
I don’t want to lose my readers, so I’ll just say, go to Youtube and search, “What is an NFL hold?” and watch a few videos if you need a deeper dive.
Right now some of you might be saying, “YOU ARE A CRAZY CONSPIRACY THEORIST”.
Am I? Do you remember when they brought in Dennis Miller to Monday Night Football? Or the epic fail of Rush Limbaugh to the ESPN GAME DAY, main table? Rush lasted 6 weeks before saying live on air, “The only reason people think Donovan McNabb is good is because he’s black”. I will never forget (saw it live) they cut to a shot of Michale Irvin, Tom Jackson and Steve Young with their jaws agape. Then Rush and Jackson get into an argument that (shockingly) did not end in the three men murdering Rush live on cable tv.
You see, when you overpay for rights to something (the NFL is BY FAR the most expensive thing TV NETWORKS license, streaming services etc) and you get the eyeballs you pay for, for half as long as you feel you paid for them….. well, then you pay less when the next contract comes up.
Roger Goddell has 1 job. Just one. The 32 owners sit him down twice a year and they argue about everything. It is a room full of billionaires arguing over how they can better manipulate money from cities (new stadiums) whether players should be allowed to remove their helmets on the field between plays or how little they can pay the families of players who suffered irreversible brain damage destroying lives and leading to former players killing themselves to escape the trauma almost no money. However, when Roger says…
“This will affect the bottom line”
…these ego-centric personalities all get on the same page.
*begin rant*
To further the point, allow me to give another example of MONEY>WINNING.
Dallas Cowboy’s owner is a Trump supporter. He is also little bit of a racist. (Based on the dictionary, I didn’t invent English) Take a look at a picture from Jerry’s college championship team in the early 60’s, ARKANSAW RAZORBACKS, (pre-integration)
— “Hey, that was a long time ago and it was the team not him personally”.
Fair enough. And people change.
There was also the time he was forced to apologize after a taped message to someone getting married leaked in 2013, “Jennifer, congratulations on the wedding. Now, you know he’s (her new husband) with a black girl tonight, don’t you?”. ha ha ha….hilarious….
“Hey — he was drunk.”
OK.
It's on video. The best part is when the amateur photographer immediately pans to a black guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiEKf8_mFig
In 2020 after the tragic Floyd murder in Minnesota and players were protesting during the national anthem Jones said, “We cannot, in any way, give the implication that we tolerate disrespecting the flag,” “We know that there is a serious debate in this country about those issues, but there is no question in my mind that the [NFL] and the Dallas Cowboys are going to stand up for the flag.” -
“Hey — he’s just patriotic”
…… Hmmmm. Well if you google ‘Jerry Jones, racism’ there are over 4 million things that come up. Do your own research.
I wrote all that so I could show this picture. A few years earlier this happened.
When the league was on the verge of games being called due to a similar matter to the recent Floyd murder. That’s Jerra, that’s the 5o yard line, and the National Anthem is playing.
Point is, he did this when Roger said, “Jerry, it’s about the money”.
*end rant*
It isn't that the old white ‘owners’ of these franchises are racists (well, hopefully not all of them) it's that they are vocal, competitive egomaniacs that have one unifying Achilles heel. Competitive Greed.
NFL owners oppress everyone in their path. Yet, when the bottom line has been brought up, Jerry Jones is on the 50 yard line of AT&T Cowboy Stadium (a billion dollar Acropolis of sorts built by him and lovingly coined , “Jerra World’ by most) during the national anthem showing “support” for black men being killed by police at an alarming rate when the teams could miss as many as one game. But he’s back to being a “Patriot” when things calm down.
Back to Dennis Miller
The networks were desperate to keep viewers for the entire game and the NFL doesn’t give a fuck about anything but money, add Miller and VIOLA! Except it didn’t work. Smarmy comedy doesn’t keep blue-collar America tuned in during a 24–3 blowout in the 4th quarter. Then something magical happened.
The mean margin of victory began to decline. (I found endless charts with the stat I want to highlight, but also mixed with other data and it was a little confusing so I’m not adding a chart — just trust me-lol) As scores began going up, the margin of victory started going down.
In 2016 the league had the smallest avg. margin of victory in the HISTORY OF THE NFL. Over 52% within 7 points. Also in the modern era (Super Bowl 1, being the beginning of the modern era) Other than a 3-year span in the mid 80’s the NFL never had 2 consecutive seasons where the total points scored by a team averaged over 21 points. Then when Roger took over, from his first full year as commissioner (2007), the league has averaged above the magical 21pts per game barrier every single year. The highest-scoring season on record prior to Roger was 21.8pts/per. IN 2008 it exceeded 22 for the first time and was a whopping 24.8 in 2020.
Games now go to the final whistle and the NFL really doesn’t care who wins. Well as long as a marquee player wins as you need a good storyline to own the media.
“IF YOU ARE RIGHT, THEN WHY WAS THE LAST SUPERBOWL A BLOWOUT?”
As I said, this is fragile. How many times has a player/coach missed the Super Bowl game due to stupidity or been arrested during the two weeks leading to the Super Bowl?
Stanley Wilson (starting FB) crack binge — Bengals Lose
Barrett Robbins goes off his meds and is found in a Tijuana bar, the day before the game (starting center) — Raiders were blown out
Eugene Robinson (starting ss) gets arrested for soliciting a prostitute night before the game — Plays, misreads a play-action and watches a bomb fly over his head — Falcons get beat
Brett Reid (daddy is a coach so he’s the coach in charge of Nepotism or something) was involved in an accident while under influence (again) a family is injured, he doesn’t make the trip. Chiefs get blown out.
“Pressure makes diamonds, however enough of it and it crushes everything.” -Not sure who said it, but I always liked it.
Of course, by the time the NFL gets you to the Super Bowl, they could care less how it turns out. They already made their money.
NFL’S NEW TV CONTRACTS
Forbes, March 21st 2021.
“The NFL reasserted its dominance over the American sports landscape on Thursday as it announced new media deals with CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN/ABC and Amazon that, according to a source, will net the league $113 billion over 11 years. That number is staggering, amounting to $321 million per team a year.”
Lastly, take a look at this one video showing a series of the high -profile late-game, officiating oddities. I’m not saying even one is proof of anything OTHER than the officials have a lot of latitude in the way things are called. Or a lot of power and authority.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-m-Uq0OmXY
Three of the calls in that video determined who went to the Super Bowl that year.
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
- If anyone wants it, I’ll do a follow up to this as part 2 will be the effects of legal gambling into that soup Roger has cooked up* (Like anyone will read 3800 words and see this footnote — who am I kidding) *
