The NFL Referees Association Having To Put Out A Statement About Not Colluding With The Chiefs Is Great News For The Eagles On Sunday
David Eulitt. Getty Images.We live in a time where everything has to be a conspiracy theory. There's seemingly nothing that can happen in life right now without a pocket of people claiming that it's the work of outside forces colluding together for some grander puppet show.
Obviously the biggest conspiracy theory in the NFL right now is that the league is "rigged" in favor of the Chiefs. It's a fun one to think about, but the practicality of it would require so many different people making so many different decisions every single week. The likelihood that the league is actively rigging games for the Chiefs is next to zero.
HOWEVA...the Chiefs are the best team in the NFL. Patrick Mahomes is the best football player on the planet. The league may not be rigged in their favor, but there is sure as shit some preferential treatment going on. Which is to be expected. You earn that right when you're as great as the Chiefs and as great as Patrick Mahomes. Of course they're going to benefit from some closer calls than other teams would receive. That's just the way the world works.
But now the jig is up, bitches. Because everyone is onto those dirty, rotten, scoundrel refs. So much so that Roger Goodell and the Referees Association have had to go out of there way to deny any claims that they are colluding with the Chiefs.
I feel like we never hear anything from the NFL Referee's Association. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen the acronym NFLRA before. So if this conspiracy theory has gotten so out of hand that they need to make their first statement in forever, then you know it's getting to them a bit. And it's only intensifying with all the focus and scrutiny placed their way during this Super Bowl week.
Which means they are ripe for some over-correction. These refs are human. Somewhere in the back of their mind during the Super Bowl, they're going to be hyperaware of the fact that everybody is waiting for every close call to go the Chiefs' way. A ticky-tack holding call here, a questionable DPI there. At some point in this game on Sunday, one of the officials is going to keep their flag on their belt because they know everybody is looking for a call to bail out the Chiefs. We know how much that holding call on Bradberry impacted Super Bowl 57. So all the Eagles need is for maybe two or three of those calls to not get made this Sunday, and they're in a great spot.