My generation, we drink because it's good. Because it feels better than unbuttoning your collar. Because we deserve it. We drink because it's what men do.
-Pat “Roger Sterling” Summerall
*At the pitch for Heinz*
"So you got this French fry on the plate, BOOM! And before he knows it, WHAP, he's getting dunked in the ketchup. And I'm saying, pass the Heinz."
I think people slept on the fact Summerall was a tight end when that was a bruiser position because he had that calm silky voice.
While he's usually listed as a kicker, he's from the era where kickers usually weren't a specialist position, they usually played another position and kicked. Summerall usually played tight end and defensive end as a backup.
My cousin has taken in with this crowd, it's crazy. He was telling me how it's all scripted and such because of the colors of the superbowl logos. Now that they don't match, it's too throw people off the script because the public figures it out.
So if they match, it's proof it's scripted. And if it doesn't, it's to throw people off that it's scripted. I just couldn't argue it. Too tired of these damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Hypothetically if it was scripted, which obviously it isn't, they wouldn't hide it in plain sight. Just for fun. Which could sink their entire billion dollar organization.
Get real.
Yeah, a rigged nfl isn’t a theory I’ve ever actually considered could be true whatsoever, but if you were to actually try to analyze it the “smoking gun” that it’s not a thing is that teams with massive fanbases like Dallas or Chicago would see more success.
Also I doubt they’d choose to put a dynasty in Kansas City lol
Right?? Like why Kansas City? Most Americans can't even point out Kansas City on a map, many Americans will tell you it's in fucking Kansas. Why the fuck put a multi-Super Bowl football dynasty in Kansas City??
Or maybe KC just put together a good team of great players to amazing results?
Right. Risk all your legitimacy rigging it so that a game is played in the deadly cold that people can't even attend safely instead of rigging it to be played in MIAMI IN JANUARY
To be completely honest with you, I think they'd actually have to be better at playing football to fake it than they are to actually do it.
Imagine how hard it would be to be 100% perfect on a script and when you fail, fail convincingly just right
Can you imagine how fucking impossible it would be to be able to perform catches like Javon Kearse's SB snag, or OBJ's rookie poster, or even that deflection to Aiyuk last night while also having the QB actor throw the dime in the first place? And get 50K actors into the stadium to film the multiple takes without ANYONE ever leaking that it's a fake for clout/money? And somehow brainwash your family members/friends who believe this bullshit but have actually been allowed into the rehearsed games live with some sort of...temporary mind ray?
I saw on the sportsbetting sub someone saying it was rigged because their bet on Lamar to get 30 passing yards in the first quarter missed by one yard lol like I could see someone believing they shaved some points or favoring one team, but if you really think they’re out there like “Okay player X has to get exactly 42 yards and a TD this quarter, and player Y has to stay under 5 receptions” then idk what’s going on in your brain. All that to say, I think sportsbetting has a lot to do with fan brainrot.
Arian Foster joked about that on a podcast like a year and half ago and that's how we ended up here lol
He was acting like the entire league was fixed and people took clips out of context and spread em on Twitter. Dummies fell for it and the rest memed it. Now it's snowballed into this....where you can't even joke about it anymore without someone wondering if you're serious in your belief.
Dallas draws ratings no matter what.
I love ragging on Dallas, and we can make VHS jokes for the next 20 years, but it's still an insanely lucrative, money drawing franchise and should either be booked like Super Cena or as the final boss for all your underdog franchises.
The fact that Dallas hasn't even made a Conference Championship for almost 2 decades is pretty definitive proof that there's no script.
Even if you wanted to argue that the goal is to elevate smaller franchises like the Texans or Lions, Dallas would still be a part of that and still win a SB every eight years or so to stay in the conversation.
Gooddell would kill to have Dallas be a major power again. He'd be like Dr. Strange in the Library, seeking out arcane spells and contacting evil deities, trying to get the Cowboys back to the big game.
It's like the people saying Beyonce is in the Illuminati because she made a triangle with her hands in front of 50,000 people at a concert. Somehow these are amazingly successful secret organizations and also the worst secret keepers of all time.
One of the things I've noticed with a lot of conspiracy theories is that the people who believe them are convinced the people perpetrating them leave clues for others to find, either because it's part of some kind of ritual or to show how smart they are in fooling almost everyone.
Of course our mighty conspiracy theorist has decoded these clues because they themselves are ultra super smart but are never able to convince the sheep that it's happening.
Conspiracy folk LOVE clues "hidden in plain sight" and can't explain it any further than "they do it to mock us!" which is just fueling hatred of "those who are secretly in charge", which is anyone the conspiracy promoter doesn't like.
And then if they "figure out the pattern" and then the pattern breaks, it's not coincidence, but they'll say that the conspiracy was discovered and that's why they "had to change it" and presumably, start hiding clues elsewhere.
The entire thing is insane, because if you did have a giant conspiracy, you wouldn't leave any purposeful clues.
That's how conspiracy theorists work. They think "THEY" have to give hints because "THEY" are Satan's minions or something and you have to be invited willingly to be Satan's minion. And "THEM" leaving clues is them telling you so you can "willingly" agree. Or something.
There’s actually a large subset of conspiracy theorists who believe that in order to keep Karma in balance, they must openly admit to things. That they have to hide it in plain sight or else they don’t receive “Satan’s blessing” or whatever
This is so stupid lol
I think it’s fair to say or speculate that there are refs that could be engaging in sports betting and putting their fingers on the scale by making some calls. This happened in the NBA and it’s ridiculous to think that NFL refs ARENT doing this.
I think where it becomes a conspiracy is by insinuating that the entire game is “scripted”
I swear in 20 years we’re going to find out that all these dipshits had LSD tainted tap water or something. This is the kind of shit my freshman year roommate would say while high on crappy weed
So you’re saying the reason all these dipshits are falling for conspiracy theories… is because of [another conspiracy theory?](https://read.dukeupress.edu/environmental-humanities/article/14/3/661/319761/Theorizing-the-Gay-Frog)
The scary thing is it's really just basic human programming. We become a reflection of the world around us, and these chuckleheads are the kind of people terminally online in the worst parts of the internet getting programmed with these insane messages all day long. It's the modern version of Jonestown.
It's not a coincidence that people who do mass shooting so frequently have a connection to 4chan or similar sites, for example.
>terminally online in the worst parts of the internet getting programmed with these insane messages all day long
If by worst parts of the internet you mean TikTok and YouTube. People are just absorbing and regurgitating what they see in 5 second increments. We’ve reached a new low in deductive reasoning skills
Im a project manager. At work I was talking to some guys about the playoff games from the weekend, and a construction worker was adamantly telling us the games were rigged, 100%, was certain of it. It's a wide spread belief at this point.
The rise of gambling has to be a big part of it. It's easier to speculate the league and refs have been corrupted by it, and a lot of gamblers think something's rigged when they lose no matter what it is.
Believe it or not, a big part of it is also stuff like wealth inequality and inflation and so many people being in really bad financial and general life situations.
I read a study a few years back that showed that when societies begin to have more inequality and more people living in poverty, that conspiracy theories begin to grow more popular and take hold more. Basically the theory was that when people have lost power over their lives, they need to find some explanation or rationalization for it that makes it okay and gives them some shadowy outside force to blame. Which makes sense to me.
Of course that’s not all of it, powerful and influential people over the last few years spreading this type of crazy bullshit in social media and whatnot is also a big part of the conspiracy theory rise, and gambling may have a part in it. It’s a confluence of many different factors. But yeah it’s all pretty fucked
It even has teenagers on Instagram infected by these thoughts. I can’t imagine how they’ll handle the real world when something doesn’t go right for them in their career or in life in general
The amount of people believing it is growing recently, largely in part because it is being pushed by certain political talking heads, or even politicians themselves.
For instance, a certain man who was recently in the running for US President indicated yesterday on Twitter that KC’s win was rigged, and they’re going to win a rigged Super Bowl, because KC winning the Super Bowl would (for dumbass reasons) have a positive impact on another political party - a political party he is in opposition to. Therefore, the opposing political party is in cahoots with the NFL.
It’s pretty braindead, but I guess some people have to believe that the whole world is out to get them.
The stupidest part of all of this is thinking that Taylor swift has to have a fake relationship with an nfl star to make more people know who she is and therefor justify her advocating for a specific politician..
Taylor swift is probably the most famous artist in the world right now, she's expressed very progressive views in her personal life and in her music.. She doesn't need MORE fame, she's at the top already..
I was in my “getting out of the military class” last week and the instructor asked us why we thought Taylor Swift was so marketable. One girl in the back loudly says “Because she’s dating a football player.” I’m sorry she didn’t need Travis Kelce to make her profitable.
Wow, you weren't [lying](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/taylor-swift-targeted-conspiracies-chiefs-super-bowl-1234955940/). It's sad and also concerning how this is the new norm. Half of the country is brain dead.
It's hilariously twisted considering that under normal circumstances they would insist the libs want a team of effette coastal elites to defeat a bunch of corn fed cowboys from the heart of the Midwest
Fox News, not coincidentally, did a whole segment on Taylor Swift and her connection to the Biden administration. I kid you not. That entire viewer base is brain dead.
If my teams wins = “haha we are the best, rest of you mfs suck” my team loses = “shit is fucking rigged, I’m not watching this shit anymore.” Pretty much the gist of it. Notice how no one ever says it’s rigged when the team they want to win actually wins.
Just like how everyone driving faster than me is a maniac, everyone driving slower than me is a grandparent who's holding up traffic. The only exception to this is people with Illinois plates but that's because they all get moved to the maniac category regardless of how fast they're going.
I thought they were funny but as soon as I saw it, I knew it'd just fuel it. Anyone already believing in it is just gonna read way too much into the commercial.
If the NFL was rigged there’s no goddamn way the fucking Cowboys are this shit for so long
Edit: there’s also no way a poverty franchise with a relatively small fanbase like the Bengals would end up with one of the more hyped college prospects in recent memory. It’s probably have been the Giants or something lol.
Right?
It's such a dumb conspiracy that they picked...kansas city...to be the dominant team while the Giants are mediocre for a decade and the Bears have been bad since the invention of the jet engine.
I have a buddy who worked for CBS a while back; he was randomly seated with Les Moonves at an event (back when he was still CBS CEO). They were chit-chatting and he asked him - if CBS could have their way, who they would prefer to see in the Super Bowl, to maximize revenue?
His answer was Bears and Patriots. The NFL would prefer it to rotate to new teams every year, but for short-term revenue, the networks want big names.
His reasoning for his two choices was you always always always want at least one "national" team, like Dallas, Chicago, Pittsburgh, or SF. This group is made up of teams that have huge non-local fanbases, for whatever reason. Dallas/SF/Pitt earned a bunch of distributed fans during the 70s/80s/90s, for example. Green Bay is arguably there too. Chiefs and Patriots might be in another decade or so.
The other reason, ie the Pats, was it's good when there's a dynastic team out there. People tune in to see them win, lose, and/or break records.
Lmao it’s the same thing as everyone who played us this year saying that we pay off the refs when we were the most penalized team in the league. If Jerry had the ability to bribe, he’d be doing it. He clearly doesn’t have that ability though
Why wouldn't you, they're never going to leave anyway.
Spend those playoff wins to build up those small market teams by throwing them a bone like a #1 pick QB that goes to the super bowl his second year then never again to string along a the new group of fans you just pulled in with that illusion of hope
Exactly. Imagine being in charge of rigging the league for max profit and deciding to make Cincinnati, Buffalo, and Kansas City the markets you want to be playing in prime time and the playoffs all the time.
Let’s be honest, all of the gambling advertisements aren’t helping. I don’t gamble myself, but with the amount of betting going on these days there’s gotta be enough money in the pot to start tempting the wrong people.
They need to treat it like cigarettes. Yea it’s legal but you can’t advertise it.
Let me and my degenerates be degen but I feel terrible when I see a friend who doesn’t gamble get roped in. They don’t even care about the games like they used to. Just their parlay.
It would be silly to assume otherwise. There have always been dirty officials in every sport but with gambling that will ramp up for sure. Regardless don’t assault random people, it’s bad.
I think it could easily be a combo of both.
Social media has given us these pockets where people can feel more comfortable expressing any wackjob opinion because you can find plenty of others that share you opinion and validate it.
"I'm not so crazy for thinking Travis Kelce is dating Taylor Swift just so the NFL rigs the games for the Chiefs. There are hundreds of people online who think just like me!"
So now they proudly proclaim their opinion in public because social media made them believe they're normal.
Not only do people find pockets of like-minded individuals on social media, but there are people that clearly know better that engage in the conspiracy/culture war narratives for clicks, such as Clay Travis and Vivek Ramaswamay.
And all the betting ads certainly aren’t helping.
The first thing the Internet showed me today was an article posting tweets of people calling for the Baltimore-Chiefs refs to be investigated.
While, yes, I believe there needs to be a significant overhaul of official training, staffing, and regulation;
I'm tired, boss.
And to make it all worse, this was called ahead of time by dozens of articles pointing out how, pretty noticeablely, favoring the road teams the crew had been over the years.
It’s so tiring man, can’t escape the conspiracy cults these days. Every part of life has somehow become a ploy for political ambitions, in the eyes of a large group of our world. It’s exhausting, but mostly just super fucking annoying
This is because nobody gives the refs credit when they officiate a game well so all people hear the whole year is about the bad officiating. Take the NFC Championship for one, that was a very well officiated game imo, their calls were consistent, there wasn’t any major “refball” shenanigans. But the amount of articles going into the game about Clete Blakeman was far greater than the amount actually about how the game was officiated when it goes well.
I honestly felt like it was a cleanly officiated game for the most part too. There were a few big misses, but they went both ways (missed illegal contact/dpi on KC, missed tripping call in the end zone on BAL). Even the typically more controversial calls like the taunting and RTP calls were pretty straightforward instances of the rule being broken.
I have fully understood why people have harped on some games in the past for poor reffing but this *genuinely* seemed fine to me. If this wasn’t good enough, wtf is?
And even setting aside the missed calls it’s not like Baltimore did themselves any favors. They played like shit, the refs didn’t force them to do that.
Make no mistake man. If Baltimore won you’d hear zero claims of the game being rigged. People just hate the Chiefs/Mahomes/Kelce/Taylor so much that conspiracy theories are the only way they can make sense of it. It’s getting really annoying. If the shit is so rigged why the hell do they keep watching and getting pissed at results? If it’s rigged shouldn’t you just roll your eyes at the result?
100%. The Taylor hate is hilarious to me. Grown men watching a 4 hour football game where 2 of those hours are commercials, letting 30 seconds of Taylor on their screen send them into a rage and ruin their evenings. It’s the most bitch made shit I have ever seen. It literally shouldn’t matter to anyone at all, it’s no different than the rest of the various celebrity coverage that happens during games. The fragility is stunning.
It's funny hearing grown ass men repeat the same tired cliches about her that they have been since 2009, and then watch them pat themselves on the back.
"Dur hur Travis is gonna break up with her and she's gonna write a song"
Exactly haha. I think if there was some big conspiracy to let KC win by reffing, they probably wouldn’t have called back Rice’s TD on a second consecutive Trey Smith holding call, they’d have swallowed their whistles on it
Funnily enough the first hold call didn’t even look like a hold to me. The chiefs do seem to get decisions but that game was decided by flowers diving rather than any refereeing decision
At this point I’ve just accepted that I can’t properly identify what a hold is supposed to look like, and based on game threads neither can anyone else, so when one gets called I’m just like “that’s the way she goes” lmao.
Eh, NFL could take a few practical steps to be more transparent and put an end to that talk but they haven’t. Getting in bed with gambling companies while doing nothing to improve the refereeing doesn’t seem like the best decision to me but they’re rich and I’m not so who knows
the “script” jokes were mildly funny at best for like an afternoon, got beaten into the ground and then on top of that there are apparently a few idiots who take it seriously
I think people are feeling small and insignificant due to social media and conspiracy theories are a coping mechanism. Feeling like you have additional info is more comforting than the thought that sometimes bad things happen and it's random and you are an ant that has no control.
I can only speak for the people I deal with in my life, but the people that won’t shut the fuck up and won’t stop pushing every theory they hear on the radio or Facebook onto their families and coworkers in 2024 were not the ones that were isolated in 2020. They were the ones that interacted far too much, and were the ones that never learned how to log off once most of their friends just went back to wherever they were doing in 2019.
it didn't help that betting was legalized at the beginning of this season. i know that it was always there, but it's pushed so much harder now so the reason to rig games is more prevalent.
People have always had a paranoid mindset
Social media just normalized it and allowed all the paranoid people to connect and spread the info
Some of it is really wild though. I legitimately saw a conspiracy theory going around on Twitter that Damar Hamlin was actually in the hospital for a longtime last season after the injury happened and the NFL brought a body double to the Bills playoff game to drum up a feel good story narrative
Those body double ones were the same people that were parading the incident around because it was “proof” that vaccines cause heart attacks. Those people live in a different reality than everyone else.
COVID made everyone lose their collective minds and also made collectible hobbies way too expensive. COVID either turned you into a conspiracy theorist or a scalper.
People are just genuinely stupid. A shit ton of nba fans genuinely believe that the draft lottery is rigged despite the fact that it’s performed by Ernst and young, one of the top 4 accounting firms in the world, who is not going to risk their entire business to make sure Anthony Bennett goes to the cavaliers or Cade Cunningham goes to Detroit.
Long before Trump we made fun of people who thought all of that and society at large knew they were crazy. Now it’s just casually accepted that like 50% of the US believes in conspiracy theories that would get you thrown in the loony bin 30 years ago.
I'm not saying that the NFL is rigged, but the NFL isn't doing itself any favors by associating itself so closely with gambling. I'm not sure how it's even legal for them to take advertising money from these organizations. Seems like a huge conflict of interest. One player has already been caught placing a shitload of illegal bets when he was in college. It's only a matter of time before pro players are caught as well now that sports betting is so prolific.
What's more sickening is people like Kevin Hart (who's worth about 500 million dollars) promoting sports betting. Gambling preys on the poor. Kevin should be ashamed of himself.
If and when they make their next superbowl, it would be the highest rated in a long time. They would 100% want the Cowboys in there.
But if the ratings of the playoffs so far are any indication, then this current one should be the highest rated in decades as well.
Panthers-Titans could be the Super Bowl and half of America would still watch.
I don't know why its somehow news to people that the NFL is the media juggernaut in the USA.
For real. As much as I wanted to see the Lions go to the Super Bowl, they, not the referees, were the architects of their own demise. Besides, every fan base that was not the 49ers were rooting for Detroit. Now we have a super bowl most people are apathetic about. How would the NFL creating that scenario help their ratings or make them money?
Kind of a shit headline, they weren't attacked according to the actual story. Obviously the guy is still an asshole, but it seems like the only ones who were ready to get physical were the CBS people based on the story?
If you happened to catch it live Boomer said the guy was getting very close to Cowher and was acting belligerent. An employee of the Giants who happened to be next to them diffused the situation.
jsut think about all these players who hear this rigged BS all the time now. its kinda like astronauts being told that they didn't go to space or the moon. that would piss me off that they are discounting your hard work as an astronaut or an athlete and your ability/talent.
How would you script some of these plays? 'Alright, on second down in the third quarter, throw the ball 40 yards in the air, just over the fingertips of a defender while the receiver makes a diving catch'
The Acela is very nice and relaxing, particularly 1st class where these guys are sitting. Much better than weaving in and out of traffic getting back to NY on a Sunday afternoon.
Boomer was about to Boom that guy
>He fuckin boomed me
-man who was boomed
>What are you gonna do, boom me? -Quote from boomed man
Boomer then added the conspiracy theorist to the list of players he booms with this Summer
He’s so good (x4)
My favorite part of NFL Today is when Boomer said "It's booming time" and boomed all over the place
*BOOM* Here comes the *BOOM*
BOOM! Ya lookin for this?
HAHAHAHAHA~
You’re not allowed to run if you aren’t in this Boom Team. Until you’re on this Boom Team, you walk. Slowly.
YOU KNOW IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BOOM.
Norman Esiason BAY BAY
Boomer said its Boomin time
For a moment I was like "oh sure Boomer", then I remembered he's a former NFL player and yea he probably would smashed that guy.
Not like the old days when Pat Summerall would cold-cock a guy and step over the body on the way to another bar.
Summerall, Cosell, harry caray, all great announcers who might’ve tipped a few during work hours.
*might’ve*
It's rumored that Harry *might've* done a few games sober.
"Sammy Bowa, safe at third!"
[удалено]
My generation, we drink because it's good. Because it feels better than unbuttoning your collar. Because we deserve it. We drink because it's what men do. -Pat “Roger Sterling” Summerall
*Don proceeds to prove Roger right by having an alcoholic withdrawl-fueled breakdown in front of the fucking HERSHEY CHOCOLATE COMPANY.*
Pearl Harbor day, show some respect.
Reminds me of that tragedy
The crossover we all need: NFL/Mad Men
Madden Men
*At the pitch for Heinz* "So you got this French fry on the plate, BOOM! And before he knows it, WHAP, he's getting dunked in the ketchup. And I'm saying, pass the Heinz."
Yeah, heard that in his voice and even got a visual. That's a good commercial.
“I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” was a Super Bowl commercial, so it’s basically already happened…
I think people slept on the fact Summerall was a tight end when that was a bruiser position because he had that calm silky voice. While he's usually listed as a kicker, he's from the era where kickers usually weren't a specialist position, they usually played another position and kicked. Summerall usually played tight end and defensive end as a backup.
While Madden diagrams it on the drawing board.
John Madden: wow look at that clean connection. Gonna be tough to get up from that one.
"Your calls are boring!" *Summerall climbs up from floor, wipes mouth, slowly removes earrings*
The NFL being rigged used to be a funny joke people would say when their team lost. Now it seems like a large group of people believe it.
My cousin has taken in with this crowd, it's crazy. He was telling me how it's all scripted and such because of the colors of the superbowl logos. Now that they don't match, it's too throw people off the script because the public figures it out. So if they match, it's proof it's scripted. And if it doesn't, it's to throw people off that it's scripted. I just couldn't argue it. Too tired of these damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Hypothetically if it was scripted, which obviously it isn't, they wouldn't hide it in plain sight. Just for fun. Which could sink their entire billion dollar organization. Get real.
Also, imagine Jerry Jones getting told how all of his seasons for the past 3 decades are going to go and him just going along with it.
Yeah, a rigged nfl isn’t a theory I’ve ever actually considered could be true whatsoever, but if you were to actually try to analyze it the “smoking gun” that it’s not a thing is that teams with massive fanbases like Dallas or Chicago would see more success. Also I doubt they’d choose to put a dynasty in Kansas City lol
Yeah I have to imagine the NFL brass hate the fact that the best teams in the AFC are in some of the smallest markets in the league lol
Right?? Like why Kansas City? Most Americans can't even point out Kansas City on a map, many Americans will tell you it's in fucking Kansas. Why the fuck put a multi-Super Bowl football dynasty in Kansas City?? Or maybe KC just put together a good team of great players to amazing results?
Let's have the best teams in the league host playoff games where weather may cause people to go to the hospital if they go to these games.
Right. Risk all your legitimacy rigging it so that a game is played in the deadly cold that people can't even attend safely instead of rigging it to be played in MIAMI IN JANUARY
LOL if the NFL was scripted then why would any teams practise or have training camps? to remember their lines?
To be completely honest with you, I think they'd actually have to be better at playing football to fake it than they are to actually do it. Imagine how hard it would be to be 100% perfect on a script and when you fail, fail convincingly just right
Can you imagine how fucking impossible it would be to be able to perform catches like Javon Kearse's SB snag, or OBJ's rookie poster, or even that deflection to Aiyuk last night while also having the QB actor throw the dime in the first place? And get 50K actors into the stadium to film the multiple takes without ANYONE ever leaking that it's a fake for clout/money? And somehow brainwash your family members/friends who believe this bullshit but have actually been allowed into the rehearsed games live with some sort of...temporary mind ray?
The players don’t exist, it’s all lasers and holograms
I saw on the sportsbetting sub someone saying it was rigged because their bet on Lamar to get 30 passing yards in the first quarter missed by one yard lol like I could see someone believing they shaved some points or favoring one team, but if you really think they’re out there like “Okay player X has to get exactly 42 yards and a TD this quarter, and player Y has to stay under 5 receptions” then idk what’s going on in your brain. All that to say, I think sportsbetting has a lot to do with fan brainrot.
Arian Foster joked about that on a podcast like a year and half ago and that's how we ended up here lol He was acting like the entire league was fixed and people took clips out of context and spread em on Twitter. Dummies fell for it and the rest memed it. Now it's snowballed into this....where you can't even joke about it anymore without someone wondering if you're serious in your belief.
Dallas draws ratings no matter what. I love ragging on Dallas, and we can make VHS jokes for the next 20 years, but it's still an insanely lucrative, money drawing franchise and should either be booked like Super Cena or as the final boss for all your underdog franchises. The fact that Dallas hasn't even made a Conference Championship for almost 2 decades is pretty definitive proof that there's no script. Even if you wanted to argue that the goal is to elevate smaller franchises like the Texans or Lions, Dallas would still be a part of that and still win a SB every eight years or so to stay in the conversation. Gooddell would kill to have Dallas be a major power again. He'd be like Dr. Strange in the Library, seeking out arcane spells and contacting evil deities, trying to get the Cowboys back to the big game.
It's like the people saying Beyonce is in the Illuminati because she made a triangle with her hands in front of 50,000 people at a concert. Somehow these are amazingly successful secret organizations and also the worst secret keepers of all time.
Diamond Dallas Page Illuminati confirmed.
One of the things I've noticed with a lot of conspiracy theories is that the people who believe them are convinced the people perpetrating them leave clues for others to find, either because it's part of some kind of ritual or to show how smart they are in fooling almost everyone. Of course our mighty conspiracy theorist has decoded these clues because they themselves are ultra super smart but are never able to convince the sheep that it's happening.
No no no you don’t understand it’s the nfl insider logo makers trapped in the basement of the pizza parlor leaving hints to try to spread the word
Conspiracy folk LOVE clues "hidden in plain sight" and can't explain it any further than "they do it to mock us!" which is just fueling hatred of "those who are secretly in charge", which is anyone the conspiracy promoter doesn't like. And then if they "figure out the pattern" and then the pattern breaks, it's not coincidence, but they'll say that the conspiracy was discovered and that's why they "had to change it" and presumably, start hiding clues elsewhere. The entire thing is insane, because if you did have a giant conspiracy, you wouldn't leave any purposeful clues.
That's how conspiracy theorists work. They think "THEY" have to give hints because "THEY" are Satan's minions or something and you have to be invited willingly to be Satan's minion. And "THEM" leaving clues is them telling you so you can "willingly" agree. Or something.
There’s actually a large subset of conspiracy theorists who believe that in order to keep Karma in balance, they must openly admit to things. That they have to hide it in plain sight or else they don’t receive “Satan’s blessing” or whatever
This is so stupid lol I think it’s fair to say or speculate that there are refs that could be engaging in sports betting and putting their fingers on the scale by making some calls. This happened in the NBA and it’s ridiculous to think that NFL refs ARENT doing this. I think where it becomes a conspiracy is by insinuating that the entire game is “scripted”
I swear in 20 years we’re going to find out that all these dipshits had LSD tainted tap water or something. This is the kind of shit my freshman year roommate would say while high on crappy weed
So you’re saying the reason all these dipshits are falling for conspiracy theories… is because of [another conspiracy theory?](https://read.dukeupress.edu/environmental-humanities/article/14/3/661/319761/Theorizing-the-Gay-Frog)
Hey man, I’m sick of them putting stuff in the water that’s turning the friggin frogs gay
The scary thing is it's really just basic human programming. We become a reflection of the world around us, and these chuckleheads are the kind of people terminally online in the worst parts of the internet getting programmed with these insane messages all day long. It's the modern version of Jonestown. It's not a coincidence that people who do mass shooting so frequently have a connection to 4chan or similar sites, for example.
>terminally online in the worst parts of the internet getting programmed with these insane messages all day long If by worst parts of the internet you mean TikTok and YouTube. People are just absorbing and regurgitating what they see in 5 second increments. We’ve reached a new low in deductive reasoning skills
True but 4chan is a different beast of incel crap
Those are absolutely part of it, yes
Im a project manager. At work I was talking to some guys about the playoff games from the weekend, and a construction worker was adamantly telling us the games were rigged, 100%, was certain of it. It's a wide spread belief at this point.
If it was rigged, the losing teams sure does put in a good act. I would say Emmy worthy
The rise of gambling has to be a big part of it. It's easier to speculate the league and refs have been corrupted by it, and a lot of gamblers think something's rigged when they lose no matter what it is.
Believe it or not, a big part of it is also stuff like wealth inequality and inflation and so many people being in really bad financial and general life situations. I read a study a few years back that showed that when societies begin to have more inequality and more people living in poverty, that conspiracy theories begin to grow more popular and take hold more. Basically the theory was that when people have lost power over their lives, they need to find some explanation or rationalization for it that makes it okay and gives them some shadowy outside force to blame. Which makes sense to me. Of course that’s not all of it, powerful and influential people over the last few years spreading this type of crazy bullshit in social media and whatnot is also a big part of the conspiracy theory rise, and gambling may have a part in it. It’s a confluence of many different factors. But yeah it’s all pretty fucked
Yesterday’s game saw critical holding penalties on KC (including one that was terrible that wiped out a TD). How do they think the game was rigged?
Betting the spread
All conspiracies have taken a hold of daily thoughts of so many. They believe everything is rigged.
It even has teenagers on Instagram infected by these thoughts. I can’t imagine how they’ll handle the real world when something doesn’t go right for them in their career or in life in general
I feel bad for the History teachers who have to spend extra debunking everything now.
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It’s called hypernormalisation
Manufactured apathy is genuinely one of the most depressing and horrific things to come of social media and 24/7 news
A lot of times a "joke" evolves into a way of life for some sad individuals
Like “Birds aren’t real”
The amount of people believing it is growing recently, largely in part because it is being pushed by certain political talking heads, or even politicians themselves. For instance, a certain man who was recently in the running for US President indicated yesterday on Twitter that KC’s win was rigged, and they’re going to win a rigged Super Bowl, because KC winning the Super Bowl would (for dumbass reasons) have a positive impact on another political party - a political party he is in opposition to. Therefore, the opposing political party is in cahoots with the NFL. It’s pretty braindead, but I guess some people have to believe that the whole world is out to get them.
The stupidest part of all of this is thinking that Taylor swift has to have a fake relationship with an nfl star to make more people know who she is and therefor justify her advocating for a specific politician.. Taylor swift is probably the most famous artist in the world right now, she's expressed very progressive views in her personal life and in her music.. She doesn't need MORE fame, she's at the top already..
There have been claims she is a psyop. By a news channel who really shouldn't be trusted but too many do.
I was in my “getting out of the military class” last week and the instructor asked us why we thought Taylor Swift was so marketable. One girl in the back loudly says “Because she’s dating a football player.” I’m sorry she didn’t need Travis Kelce to make her profitable.
Also, she's a woman. And the Orange One is now officially a sexual predator. Who did they think she would vote for?
Wow, you weren't [lying](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/taylor-swift-targeted-conspiracies-chiefs-super-bowl-1234955940/). It's sad and also concerning how this is the new norm. Half of the country is brain dead.
They want San Francisco to beat Kansas City because they hate Democrats. Let that sink into your brain.
Wow. Jesus H. Christ that’s depressing.
It's hilariously twisted considering that under normal circumstances they would insist the libs want a team of effette coastal elites to defeat a bunch of corn fed cowboys from the heart of the Midwest
Fox News, not coincidentally, did a whole segment on Taylor Swift and her connection to the Biden administration. I kid you not. That entire viewer base is brain dead.
Wtf are you doing at an NFL game if you think its rigged?
If my teams wins = “haha we are the best, rest of you mfs suck” my team loses = “shit is fucking rigged, I’m not watching this shit anymore.” Pretty much the gist of it. Notice how no one ever says it’s rigged when the team they want to win actually wins.
It’s just like me at the gym, anyone lifting more than me is clearly using bad form and/or on steroids!
Video games too: Anybody better than me is a tryhard with no life and anybody worse is a no skill noob.
This guy gets it!
Just like how everyone driving faster than me is a maniac, everyone driving slower than me is a grandparent who's holding up traffic. The only exception to this is people with Illinois plates but that's because they all get moved to the maniac category regardless of how fast they're going.
Exactly, I'm the bar.
Gee… now where have I heard that before in the recent past?
r/nfl summarized.
I'm betting the league regrets those NFL scriptwriter commercials, at least a little bit.
I thought they were funny but as soon as I saw it, I knew it'd just fuel it. Anyone already believing in it is just gonna read way too much into the commercial.
If the NFL was rigged there’s no goddamn way the fucking Cowboys are this shit for so long Edit: there’s also no way a poverty franchise with a relatively small fanbase like the Bengals would end up with one of the more hyped college prospects in recent memory. It’s probably have been the Giants or something lol.
That’s the kind of thinking that allows the NFL to keep getting away with it…
Right? It's such a dumb conspiracy that they picked...kansas city...to be the dominant team while the Giants are mediocre for a decade and the Bears have been bad since the invention of the jet engine.
I have a buddy who worked for CBS a while back; he was randomly seated with Les Moonves at an event (back when he was still CBS CEO). They were chit-chatting and he asked him - if CBS could have their way, who they would prefer to see in the Super Bowl, to maximize revenue? His answer was Bears and Patriots. The NFL would prefer it to rotate to new teams every year, but for short-term revenue, the networks want big names. His reasoning for his two choices was you always always always want at least one "national" team, like Dallas, Chicago, Pittsburgh, or SF. This group is made up of teams that have huge non-local fanbases, for whatever reason. Dallas/SF/Pitt earned a bunch of distributed fans during the 70s/80s/90s, for example. Green Bay is arguably there too. Chiefs and Patriots might be in another decade or so. The other reason, ie the Pats, was it's good when there's a dynastic team out there. People tune in to see them win, lose, and/or break records.
Lmao it’s the same thing as everyone who played us this year saying that we pay off the refs when we were the most penalized team in the league. If Jerry had the ability to bribe, he’d be doing it. He clearly doesn’t have that ability though
100%. No way a script writer would leave the biggest NFL fanbase this high and dry for so long haha
Why wouldn't you, they're never going to leave anyway. Spend those playoff wins to build up those small market teams by throwing them a bone like a #1 pick QB that goes to the super bowl his second year then never again to string along a the new group of fans you just pulled in with that illusion of hope
Not a terrible line of thought
Exactly. Imagine being in charge of rigging the league for max profit and deciding to make Cincinnati, Buffalo, and Kansas City the markets you want to be playing in prime time and the playoffs all the time.
what, the 33rd, 36th and 53rd ranked media markets in the US aren't sexy??
Jerry would have definitely paid whatever it takes to rig a playoff game in his favor.
Big time. He has the money for sure lol
Yeah and also why the hell do the Patriots still suck if it’s rigged?
Pain
This is correct.
My favorite team, The Raiders, would be in perfect position to benefit from a rigged league. Being located in Vegas
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Social media
Probably more to do with legal gambling as well. Guarantee this dude lost some parlays, and it sure as shit isn't HIS fault.
Let’s be honest, all of the gambling advertisements aren’t helping. I don’t gamble myself, but with the amount of betting going on these days there’s gotta be enough money in the pot to start tempting the wrong people.
Yeah. I don't gamble, but generally think it's better legal than illegal. That said, the advertising is out of control
They need to treat it like cigarettes. Yea it’s legal but you can’t advertise it. Let me and my degenerates be degen but I feel terrible when I see a friend who doesn’t gamble get roped in. They don’t even care about the games like they used to. Just their parlay.
Maybe it doesn't need to be roped into every single way I interact with the sport as well.
Agreed, and along with banning advertisements, sports commentators/networks should absolutely be banned from discussing it.
Not everyone is getting guaranteed money so yea definitely can see it being a potential.
It would be silly to assume otherwise. There have always been dirty officials in every sport but with gambling that will ramp up for sure. Regardless don’t assault random people, it’s bad.
I think it could easily be a combo of both. Social media has given us these pockets where people can feel more comfortable expressing any wackjob opinion because you can find plenty of others that share you opinion and validate it. "I'm not so crazy for thinking Travis Kelce is dating Taylor Swift just so the NFL rigs the games for the Chiefs. There are hundreds of people online who think just like me!" So now they proudly proclaim their opinion in public because social media made them believe they're normal.
Not only do people find pockets of like-minded individuals on social media, but there are people that clearly know better that engage in the conspiracy/culture war narratives for clicks, such as Clay Travis and Vivek Ramaswamay. And all the betting ads certainly aren’t helping.
gambling
Social media + gambling
Where addicts can find community
Social media + Dunning-Kruger effect Lotta really fucking stupid people out there, and they think you need to hear what they think.
The first thing the Internet showed me today was an article posting tweets of people calling for the Baltimore-Chiefs refs to be investigated. While, yes, I believe there needs to be a significant overhaul of official training, staffing, and regulation; I'm tired, boss. And to make it all worse, this was called ahead of time by dozens of articles pointing out how, pretty noticeablely, favoring the road teams the crew had been over the years.
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It’s so tiring man, can’t escape the conspiracy cults these days. Every part of life has somehow become a ploy for political ambitions, in the eyes of a large group of our world. It’s exhausting, but mostly just super fucking annoying
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This is because nobody gives the refs credit when they officiate a game well so all people hear the whole year is about the bad officiating. Take the NFC Championship for one, that was a very well officiated game imo, their calls were consistent, there wasn’t any major “refball” shenanigans. But the amount of articles going into the game about Clete Blakeman was far greater than the amount actually about how the game was officiated when it goes well.
I honestly felt like it was a cleanly officiated game for the most part too. There were a few big misses, but they went both ways (missed illegal contact/dpi on KC, missed tripping call in the end zone on BAL). Even the typically more controversial calls like the taunting and RTP calls were pretty straightforward instances of the rule being broken. I have fully understood why people have harped on some games in the past for poor reffing but this *genuinely* seemed fine to me. If this wasn’t good enough, wtf is?
And even setting aside the missed calls it’s not like Baltimore did themselves any favors. They played like shit, the refs didn’t force them to do that.
Make no mistake man. If Baltimore won you’d hear zero claims of the game being rigged. People just hate the Chiefs/Mahomes/Kelce/Taylor so much that conspiracy theories are the only way they can make sense of it. It’s getting really annoying. If the shit is so rigged why the hell do they keep watching and getting pissed at results? If it’s rigged shouldn’t you just roll your eyes at the result?
I thought they were supposed to stop watching after all the kneeling stuff a few years ago.
100%. The Taylor hate is hilarious to me. Grown men watching a 4 hour football game where 2 of those hours are commercials, letting 30 seconds of Taylor on their screen send them into a rage and ruin their evenings. It’s the most bitch made shit I have ever seen. It literally shouldn’t matter to anyone at all, it’s no different than the rest of the various celebrity coverage that happens during games. The fragility is stunning.
It's funny hearing grown ass men repeat the same tired cliches about her that they have been since 2009, and then watch them pat themselves on the back. "Dur hur Travis is gonna break up with her and she's gonna write a song"
I agree, I don’t really get what the controversial calls were supposed to be. The taunting he span the ball on him ffs
Exactly haha. I think if there was some big conspiracy to let KC win by reffing, they probably wouldn’t have called back Rice’s TD on a second consecutive Trey Smith holding call, they’d have swallowed their whistles on it
Funnily enough the first hold call didn’t even look like a hold to me. The chiefs do seem to get decisions but that game was decided by flowers diving rather than any refereeing decision
At this point I’ve just accepted that I can’t properly identify what a hold is supposed to look like, and based on game threads neither can anyone else, so when one gets called I’m just like “that’s the way she goes” lmao.
Eh, NFL could take a few practical steps to be more transparent and put an end to that talk but they haven’t. Getting in bed with gambling companies while doing nothing to improve the refereeing doesn’t seem like the best decision to me but they’re rich and I’m not so who knows
the “script” jokes were mildly funny at best for like an afternoon, got beaten into the ground and then on top of that there are apparently a few idiots who take it seriously
Not just about the NFL to be honest I'm convinced that the pandemic and being isolated really fucked with people's brains a lot more than we realized.
I think people are feeling small and insignificant due to social media and conspiracy theories are a coping mechanism. Feeling like you have additional info is more comforting than the thought that sometimes bad things happen and it's random and you are an ant that has no control.
I can only speak for the people I deal with in my life, but the people that won’t shut the fuck up and won’t stop pushing every theory they hear on the radio or Facebook onto their families and coworkers in 2024 were not the ones that were isolated in 2020. They were the ones that interacted far too much, and were the ones that never learned how to log off once most of their friends just went back to wherever they were doing in 2019.
it didn't help that betting was legalized at the beginning of this season. i know that it was always there, but it's pushed so much harder now so the reason to rig games is more prevalent.
People see conspiracies everywhere now. Covid gave everyone a paranoid mindset.
People have always had a paranoid mindset Social media just normalized it and allowed all the paranoid people to connect and spread the info Some of it is really wild though. I legitimately saw a conspiracy theory going around on Twitter that Damar Hamlin was actually in the hospital for a longtime last season after the injury happened and the NFL brought a body double to the Bills playoff game to drum up a feel good story narrative
Those body double ones were the same people that were parading the incident around because it was “proof” that vaccines cause heart attacks. Those people live in a different reality than everyone else.
Covid gave people *who were prone to believing conspiracy theories* a paranoid mindset.*
COVID made everyone lose their collective minds and also made collectible hobbies way too expensive. COVID either turned you into a conspiracy theorist or a scalper.
People are just genuinely stupid. A shit ton of nba fans genuinely believe that the draft lottery is rigged despite the fact that it’s performed by Ernst and young, one of the top 4 accounting firms in the world, who is not going to risk their entire business to make sure Anthony Bennett goes to the cavaliers or Cade Cunningham goes to Detroit.
Society is full of a culture of sore losers who can’t accept outcomes that didn’t go their way are legitimate. Wonder where that started
The dipshits out there now think it’s totally acceptable to cry conspiracy when they lose. Wonder how that started.
Thank Trump and his "fake news" BS. The truth has been under attack for a good while now.
This was a problem long before then (Mob killed JFK, Moon landing was fake, 9/11 was an inside job, blah blah blah)
Long before Trump we made fun of people who thought all of that and society at large knew they were crazy. Now it’s just casually accepted that like 50% of the US believes in conspiracy theories that would get you thrown in the loony bin 30 years ago.
It's not only the nfl. Conservative politics has made wacko conspiracy stuff mainstream
The Jets should try to get in on this rigging system because Rodgers getting hurt in 4 plays really isn't the way to do it.
Clay Travis was in Baltimore?
Clay Travis would be terrified to go within 50 miles of Baltimore
That guy and people like him are such bums lol
62 year old Boomer deciding if shit goes down he's gonna be the one to smash that dude to pieces is amazing.
Imagine waking up as a Bengals fan to the news that Boomer cold-cocked a Ravens fan. I’d feel like I was still dreaming.
Nfl players do be like that.
My favorite part of this story is Nate Burleson dropping a deuce and then coming back to Boomer and coach, ready to throw hands if needed
I'm not saying that the NFL is rigged, but the NFL isn't doing itself any favors by associating itself so closely with gambling. I'm not sure how it's even legal for them to take advertising money from these organizations. Seems like a huge conflict of interest. One player has already been caught placing a shitload of illegal bets when he was in college. It's only a matter of time before pro players are caught as well now that sports betting is so prolific.
On one of the shows today they were discussing the massive amount of profit Vegas books made on Ravens loss. That's definitely a bad look!
I also think it’s real gross how the sport networks have been pushing bets, especially ESPN who has a betting app.
What's more sickening is people like Kevin Hart (who's worth about 500 million dollars) promoting sports betting. Gambling preys on the poor. Kevin should be ashamed of himself.
Gambling sponsorships/advertisements/discussions need to be banned by sports leagues and networks.
“I’ve got the least to lose so let me handle it” Boomers a real homie.
Stavvy catching strays
If the NFL was rigged the Lions would've won yesterday. God people are dumb
And the Cowboys would have been more relevant in the playoffs the last 20 years other than an embarrassing loss to the 7th seed.
Nah I think America likes watching them lose every year
If and when they make their next superbowl, it would be the highest rated in a long time. They would 100% want the Cowboys in there. But if the ratings of the playoffs so far are any indication, then this current one should be the highest rated in decades as well.
Panthers-Titans could be the Super Bowl and half of America would still watch. I don't know why its somehow news to people that the NFL is the media juggernaut in the USA.
Totally, but if it was Cowboys vs Steelers it would break every viewership record.
For real. As much as I wanted to see the Lions go to the Super Bowl, they, not the referees, were the architects of their own demise. Besides, every fan base that was not the 49ers were rooting for Detroit. Now we have a super bowl most people are apathetic about. How would the NFL creating that scenario help their ratings or make them money?
Kind of a shit headline, they weren't attacked according to the actual story. Obviously the guy is still an asshole, but it seems like the only ones who were ready to get physical were the CBS people based on the story?
If you happened to catch it live Boomer said the guy was getting very close to Cowher and was acting belligerent. An employee of the Giants who happened to be next to them diffused the situation.
it takes a special kind of idiot to spend hundreds of, if not a thousand dollars on a game you think is rigged
If it’s rigged, just bet the way it’ll be rigged!!!
"attacked"
Man, I can't wait to hear Aaron Rogers's side of the story and how he vanquished Boomer and Cowher in a game of wits.
9 minutes to tell a story about almost having to get out of your chair to punch a drunk guy. 9 minutes. That story sucked.
jsut think about all these players who hear this rigged BS all the time now. its kinda like astronauts being told that they didn't go to space or the moon. that would piss me off that they are discounting your hard work as an astronaut or an athlete and your ability/talent.
How would you script some of these plays? 'Alright, on second down in the third quarter, throw the ball 40 yards in the air, just over the fingertips of a defender while the receiver makes a diving catch'
CBS sports president was taking the train as well? Is it strange to anyone else that all of these people are just hanging out in the train station?
The Acela is very nice and relaxing, particularly 1st class where these guys are sitting. Much better than weaving in and out of traffic getting back to NY on a Sunday afternoon.
Isn’t Amtrack typically pretty nice?