The 2007 Super Bowl made the regular-season Patriots game in Denver this year look like a paragon of integrity. I'll never forget Troy Aikman repeatedly asking, for hundreds of millions to hear, what is wrong with the clock and why it's not working as the Giants are given extra time to complete the game-winning drive...Or the most blatant OPI in the history of football, that got shown in replay no less, when Burress caught a long pass - after pushing the Patriots cornerback about six feet away with fully extended arms - in the first quarter that put them in field-goal range and ended up being the winning margin, and OPI wasn't called...Or slow-motion replay on a third-quarter drive showing Brady getting hit, not just late, but in the head (specifically his chin), and not just in the head but by the helmet of the Giants defender, and not even Aikman and Nance said anything about the fact it wasn't called, and that play was third-down and we had to punt, whereas we were close to the fifty and would've been in Giants territory, i.e. close to scoring range, if the penalty had been called...And then the storyline was how the Patriots' storybook pursuit of the perfect season came up one game short, but the whole thing was a lie and Belichick and Brady should already be five-time champions and Don Shula should be a bitter old man as opposed to the gloating one he is.
The bogus grounding call in 2012 when there was a receiver as much in the vicinity as one can be without dropping the ball, was less obvious but still started the Patriots in a hole, and of course they had to kick off, and the Giants scored on the ensuing possession, and that touchdown ended up being the difference in the game. One more possession for the Patriots, particularly one that early in the game, and one less for the Giants easily could have made the difference in the game. When any two teams in the age-of-parity NFL play, it doesn't take a lot to sway the outcome; and when those two teams are the two best in the league that year, it takes even less.
I don't remember whether it was that 2012 game or the AFC championship the year the Ravens supposedly won the Super Bowl, that during the halftime show Mangini commented, again for hundreds of millions to hear, that the refs were letting the defensive backs for the Patriots' opponent (he called the team by name but I don't recall which it was) make extra contact beyond five yards. And this is a coach that had not just coached against the Pats but had turned them in for a violation just a couple years earlier.
As multiple other posters have commented, anyone who doesn't think at this point that the NFL is corrupt, should be a publicist for Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.
