Pats726

The NFL will laugh at petitions..tear them up and toss them..Talk?? yes if the airwaves are filled with talk about how the game was manipulated..and how the refs were bad, they will not like that..but talk is cheap. What MAY get the the NFL to do something is a threat of a congress investigating...NOT that I think they can do anything right..but..they have authority and I think the threat would get the NFL to act. Hey if quiz shows can be rigged..and investigated why not a BILLION dollar industry with gambling and??/ Much more at stake and..more to lose..It is the talk and the threat that will make the NFL do something. (BTW D and C are discussing refs now...)

FloridaPatsFan

I had to back off my comments a couple of weeks back when I said that the NFL manipulates the calls to get an outcome that favors ratings and revenue. I caught a ton of crap for saying it too. The Indy/Pitt was one of the biggest shameless displays of the NFL calling a game to favor a team that I ever saw. Yes, they wanted Indy in the Championship game but Pitt played too well to lose. Same goes for the Pats at Denver. Officiating played a HUGE role in the outcome of the game. Whether football fans want to hear it or not, the NFL controls (to a very large degree) the way a game is called. I watched the game with about 50 non-biased fans yesterday and we all walked away from the game with the same conclusion....Pitts was chosen to win the game and the refs made sure of it.

mtbykr

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Fanfrom1960

I thought the NFL had become the class organization that the other pro sports could model themselves after. I was way wrong. I think the problem has been and still is that NFL refs are weekend warriors only, rather than paid "professionals" like in major league baseball. Not sure about the NBA, but I'd bet their refs are professional refs. I don't know how the NFL fixes this because games are mostly just on weekends and they obviously don't want to take on paying refs a salary for other than weekends.

nugsfan

Floridapatsfan I couldnt agree more! The only difference is I dont think I have ever seen a team get hosed in the playoffs or Super Bowl like they were doing to teams this yeart. IMO this all started when the Colts WR's couldnt get open a couple years back so they changed the rules and the way they officiate games. From that point on I have seen teams repeatedly get the NBA treatment and really given the parity of the NFL its too much for most teams to overcome bad/biased officiating. What a travesty, what a rip off! Its this sort of thing that got me to quit watching the NBA and I hope the NFL cleans this up so I dont have to find something else to do on sundays!

CTPatsFan

Congress has more important things to screw up. We don't need them messing the NFL up any more than it already is.

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workhorse

Yep, I agree.

CTPatsFan

Prolly the first, last, and only time

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Fanfrom1960

I don't know about that. It was a House appointed committee that resulted in the far stricter drug policy being instituted in major league baseball. Of course, blowing pass interference calls is not as serious as players taking performance enhancing drugs either.

ilduce06410

it's hard to become a classy "organization" when nobody's on the same payroll. as long as the franchises are financially independent, and one franchise can sue the others, and WIN, and not get thrown out of the collaborative, and the product is not completley under the control of the nfl organization itself, i don't believe it can be called an organization.
what it is is an exclusive group of independendent organizations acting in collusion with each other. that's called a "trust", which is illegal. suppose all the banks in the country got together and decided to stop competing and give us all the same interest rates, etc. that's a trust, and illegal.
The Congress gives the NFL, NHL, MLB, and the NBA, by classification, an exemption fron the rules banning "trusts". it's called an "antitrust exemption". Congress ever decides to call these alliances what they are, all the leagues coule continue, but the fracchises wouldn't be able to make a single contract with player, etc.
wiitjhin those exemption rules, the Congress has also given the owners and their franchises a set of tax exemptions and tax credits that essentially makes it imposible for an nfl franchise to lose money. there are also a set of exemptions for franchises that build stadiums. if my math is right, the tax exemptions afforded to the patrions, including accelerated depreciation rules, afford them about $35 million a year in exemptions from tax payments. the stadium cost $345m.
each referee is a successful professional, business owner, educator, or something else where they have enough personal income to be invulnerable to bribes. they only get something like $1500 a game plus travel. iso they don't officiate games for the money, they do it, basically, for the thrill. imagine standing three feet away as joey porter and shawn alexander run into each other full tilt.
n most cases, these guys would not give up their careers to become full time refs for the nfl. they make very good money in their day jobs, and they like their work.