The NFL and its officials union are sounding a lot like aggrieved Democrats, complaining loudly and longly about perceived insults, slights, and accusations. At least they aren’t taking it to the streets and threatening physical violence. At least, not yet.
You might have heard many have suggested that one-half of Sunday’s Super Bowl pairing got a little help – actually a lot of help – in making it to the big game. That would be the Kansas City (Chiefs) Swifts.
Critics say the Swifts (Chiefs) don’t get all the calls from the officials, just the ones that matter most at big moments. A story posted on MSN.com, from Total Pro Sports, cited 10 big calls that were unclear, questionable or flat-out wrong, but all went the way of the Swifts just this season, including a couple in each of the playoff games.
Some coincidence, huh?
I confess to having seen myself what I deemed to be some suspect calls, which is one reason I tuned out the Swifts’ first playoff game early, ignored totally the next round, and won’t be watching Sunday’s Super Bowl, for the second consecutive year.
This is a big change in habit for me. I’ve watched most Super Bowls, even been there to cover six of them during my career as a sports columnist.
I threw quite a few Super Bowl parties in my days, but those went by the wayside years back and, to repeat, I no longer am inclined even to watch the game.
The righteous indignation of the NFL, from DEI commissioner Roger Goodell on down, is loud regarding suspicions about the officiating.
Sure, it benefits the league to have a story line of the Swifts going for a record third consecutive Super Bowl title. And having songstress Taylor Swift as a parmour of one of the Swifts players added to the attraction for viewers beyond football fans.
But there is no tangible proof, at least not what used to be the standard to hold up in court. On what has become the sliding scale, in which there are different legal standards for different people, maybe.
One argument against a conspiracy – that being that it would take a great deal of organization and thereby is impossible – falls into the laughable category.
Anyone with their head screwed on straight realizes it’s better for the league if the Kansas City story continues. You don’t need exchanges of emails between would-be conspirators to know that.
Again, there is no evidence of any wrongdoing, just a lot of rulings that, when taken in total, don’t necessarily pass the smell test.
Perhaps this all is fallout from the recognition of just how far the deep state has gone in bastardizing this nation’s government.
People who believe the Swifts get some help, just might think the U.S. government would fund a news outlet such as Politco to spew misinformation and government talking points, even to kickstart impeachment of a sitting president. And, yes, that happened.
Moving on, people supporting a Swifts conspiracy theory might suggest the FBI and CIA were weaponized to damage a sitting president and eventual successful candidate for yet another term. That happened, too.
A plan to help the Swifts doesn’t stretch the bounds of possibility any more than proposing that members of the government bureaucracy would actively work to subvert an administration’s policy, right?
Surely such an NFL plot would not be as absurd as Democrats and assorted enablers propping up a mentally incompetent president for four years and even endorsing him, for a time, to run for another term.
Maybe the NFL can round up a list of 51 former or current intelligence officials to sign an open letter swearing rumors of NFL officiating bias are merely Russian disinformation? It sounds vaguely familiar to me — something having to do with Hunter Biden’s laptop and, well, it wasn’t disinformation.
What if we got 102 former or current intelligent officials to certify NFL officiating is even-handed?
Perhaps 204, or maybe 408? No?
OK, let’s move on. Suggesting an ongoing NFL officiating conspiracy certainly is far-fetched, as ridiculous as assertions that 60 Minutes might doctor a Kamala Harris quote to eliminate her word salad, that COVID-19 was a lab leak from China, that the FBI would lie to get illegal wiretap permission, that an elected official in Bucks County would vow to count illegal votes, or that a New Jersey governor would brag about hiding an illegal immigrant in rooms over his garage and defy ICE to do anything about it.
The problem the NFL has is that there seems to be a lot of evidence of, at minimum, inexplicable calls.
Where the whole JFK assassination speculation had to lean very heavily on the Zapruder video, under 30 seconds of 8mm film, NFL games result in hours of videos, from different angles, with slow motion and stop-action thrown into the mix.
Under all that scrutiny, it does seem the Swifts get more than their share of the close calls.
Whether that is by design or pure happenstance is unknowable, and there is no hope of an election throwing out Goodell and bringing in someone intent on throwing sunlight on the matter.
Sam Ross Jr's site 