A dark day for the NFL...

[Eli]

Actually not many really.

And how many are quarterbacks or receivers, who are the biggest beneficiaries of today's rules? Seems to me that they've mostly been linemen and players who knock heads on every play and seldom leave the game due to a concussion.

[S197]

Actually not many really. But you get paid big bucks for being an NFL player, and thats part of the price. They are over doing it now, and in a few years, if it continues as it has been, there wont be any football. I get the calls on a QB, like the one on Shaub yesterday. But if your catching a ball running in the middle of the field, you KNOW your going to get hit. Dont go there if ya cant take the hits.

Not many? There's been TONS of articles posted to this forum documenting the cases. And I'm not talking about the "Tom Brady rule" hits, I'm talking about the helmet to helmet, defenseless player hits. If you look at the old truly hard hitters in the game, the Ronnie Lott's for example, they took guys out but they didn't lead with the crown of the helmet. Now you have guys like Heyward-Bey lying unconscious for 10 minutes on the field or Boldin who broke every bone in his face. There's a difference between being a physically hard hitting player and being a player that uses techniques that can permanently injure someone.

[BGM]

To be fair even the other refs would occasionally allow coaches to challenge instead of a timeout. I could swear they let Frazier do the same thing just last year.

^^^This.

The Vikings dominated one of the best teams in the NFL.

[Cliff]

Not many? There's been TONS of articles posted to this forum documenting the cases. And I'm not talking about the "Tom Brady rule" hits, I'm talking about the helmet to helmet, defenseless player hits. If you look at the old truly hard hitters in the game, the Ronnie Lott's for example, they took guys out but they didn't lead with the crown of the helmet. Now you have guys like Heyward-Bey lying unconscious for 10 minutes on the field or Boldin who broke every bone in his face. There's a difference between being a physically hard hitting player and being a player that uses techniques that can permanently injure someone.

Well said. If you want to see a hard hitting player that also uses proper techniques you need look no further than Winfield. I think he fits that description perfectly.

[Hunter Morrow]

Take the blue pill me, doubters, as I take you on a journey.

Sports is ENTERTAINMENT. You know, sports entertainment. Like the WWE. To include the NFL. How do you know this? The league admitted as such in 2010 before the United States Supreme Court. They tried to represent themselves as not 32 separate sports teams but rather 1 collective entity providing "entertainment" and "maximum enjoyment."

"In today's decision, the Supreme Court recognized that 'special characteristics' of professional sports leagues, including the need for competitive balance, 'may well justify' business decisions that among independent competitors would otherwise be unlawful. The court noted that the NFL teams' shared interest in making the league successful and cooperating to produce NFL football provide 'a perfectly sensible justification for making a host of collective decisions,'" the NFL said.

Making a host of decisions such as setting up storylines? Like the Patriots, or the Packers or the 2009 Vikings and the Saints (numerous times). Making decisions for the betterment of the collective, like every playoff being packed with Top 10 market teams.

The Super Bowl winners are all big market teams, league darlings, manufactured dynasties and storyline primadonnas. The league deliberately officiates to the benefit of big markets, darlings and actively conspires to create dynasties and storylines.

Case in Point: Post season travesties like Saints/Vikings, Packers/Giants. Even the Super Bowl is blatantly tampered with to give money makers and cash cow dynasties undeserved rings. Steelers/Seahawks is basically 2002 Lakers/Kings or the Lakers/Celtics debacle, 2006 Suns/Spurs, etc.

Que bono, Who Benefits? Who benefits from slow, shoddy scab refs who are easily influenced by marquee coaches and players? The league, of course.
Think about why a 10 billion+ dollar a year industry would start "incompetent" refs. 1, it is a storyline. 2, who better to rig games? You can just pass off rig jobs, point shaving and point inflation as "those goddamned bungling refs are at it again!"

Watch for it to shake out in the playoffs as a big time "storyline" and have a payoff at WrestleMania, excuse me, Super Bowl 47.

Edit: How does this factor in with the Vikings? Easy. We've been given the bum rap as the "lovable losers" who can just never quite get the job done because we like to commit lots of offensive pass interference and holding penalties in the red zone that nobody on planet Earth sees but the refs. It is no mere coincidence that we have lost 4 NFC Championship games, one of which was a Bounty festival blatantly rigged to get the Saints a ring. We are the storyline Goofus to the Green Bay Gallant. When the time is right, the stars will align, Roger Goodell will get a wild hair up his #### and we will be a Storyline Team and magically have the ability to have 60 pass attempts a game and never commit a single holding or offensive pass interference penalty. You know, like the Saints and Packers when they were Storyline teams.

[Mothman]

Making a host of decisions such as setting up storylines? Like the Patriots, or the Packers or the 2009 Vikings and the Saints (numerous times). Making decisions for the betterment of the collective, like every playoff being packed with Top 10 market teams.

The Super Bowl winners are all big market teams, league darlings, manufactured dynasties and storyline primadonnas.

Is that why the Steelers (and Seattle, Arizona, Tampa Bay, Green Bay, Indianapolis, etc.) have all played in Super Bowls over the past decade or so? Those teams don't play in the top 10 TV markets. Pittsburgh isn't a "manufactured dynasty". There would be no reason to make them one since they were never a big market team in the first place yet they've played in as many Super Bowls as any NFL team (more than anybody but Dallas, if I remember correctly).

The league deliberately officiates to the benefit of big markets, darlings and actively conspires to create dynasties and storylines.

That's a fun theory but there's absolutely no proof to support it.

Case in Point: Post season travesties like Saints/Vikings, Packers/Giants.

Why would they want the Saints in the Super Bowl over the Vikings? I know the whole Katrina story was nice for the media but that doesn't hold with your big market theory at all. The Vikes play in a bigger market than the Saints and having 40 year old, long time NFL media darling Brett Favre lead the Vikings to the big game and play in a Favre vs. Manning Super Bowl would have been an NFL TV and marketing dream.

Sorry, I'm spitting out the blue pill. It tastes like hogwash.

Jim

[Hunter Morrow]

No no no. The league heavily associated itself with the Saints. Another thing the NFL has admitted to in the same way that baseball added shorter home field and expansion teams and blatantly allowed cheaters to be their darlings and money makers because they could hit homers is that top level quarterback play is the real moneymaker of the NFL. Top rushers are not household names the way top quarterbacks are. Kids have been conditioned to think of themselves as making the Hail Mary, not taking a 60 yarder to the house. The quarterback stuff like strict enforcement of contact outside of 5 yards, defining down legal hits and broadening unnecessary roughing is all about making an artifically entertaining, star QB moneymaker league. Look at all the bogus "roughing" penalties you've seen in the past 10 years. That isn't roughing the passer and you know it. It is damaging the milk cow.

Rapeburger was a Dynasty heading prime time special QB darling so he got the game even though he played like booty. Drew Brees defeated Favre because Brees can be the moneymaker that Old Goat Bret just couldn't be anymore. NFL has been all over the Saints D-d-d-fense (wink wink) since Hurricane Katrina. They went to the NFC Championship game and won the Super Bowl shortly thereafter for more reasons than just Bountygate.

[Mothman]

No no no. The league heavily associated itself with the Saints.

Did the league force 4 different Vikings to turn the ball over too?

I understand how attractive this sort of conspiratorial thinking can be, especially to frustrated fans, but I just don't think there's anywhere close to sufficient evidence to support it.

Another thing the NFL has admitted to in the same way that baseball added shorter home field and expansion teams and blatantly allowed cheaters to be their darlings and money makers because they could hit run is that top level quarterback play is the real moneymaker of the NFL. Top rushers are not household names the way top quarterbacks are. Kids have been conditioned to think of themselves as making the Hail Mary, not taking a 60 yarder to the house. The quarterback stuff like strict enforcement of contact outside of 5 yards, defining down legal hits and broading unnecessary roughing. Look at all the bogus "roughing" penalties you've seen in the past 10 years. That isn't roughing the passer and you know it. It is damaging the milk cow.

Okay... what does that have to with fixing games? I'm not suggesting the NFL isn't entertainment or that the rules haven't changed over the years to favor QBs and passing but that's not evidence to support the league fixing games to create dynasties and storylines.

Drew Brees defeated Favre because Brees can be the moneymaker that Old Goat Bret just couldn't be anymore.

Then why would the NFL put his team in position to fail this year by issuing harsh penalties for Bountygate? He's still a good moneymaker. I suppose that's because they now want Aaron Rodgers to win and the reason Rodgers and GB didn't get to the Super Bowl last year is because they like Eli Manning more and he plays for the biggest market in the country. Am I close?

The theory just doesn't hold water.

NFL has been all over the Saints D-d-d-fense (wink wink) since Hurricane Katrina. They went to the NFC Championship game and won the Super Bowl shortly thereafter for more reasons than just Bountygate.

I agree. Reason #1 is they had a good team.

[Just Me]

I'm sensing a new Oliver Stone release in our futures

[Hunter Morrow]

Bountygate penalties and a little help from the scab presents an attractive story line:
Karma/Schadenfreude

You can already see people exalting in the Saints 0-3 record, most notably the teams the Saints wronged while the league almost assuredly knew of a years-long bounty program and wink-winked it because it allowed the Saints storyline to happen and they could cash in with "harsh penalties" for things that financially benefited the league greatly with the Karma/Ha That Is What You Get Storyline this season.

[Mothman]

Bountygate penalties and a little help from the scab presents an attractive story line:
Karma/Schadenfreude

You can already see people exalting in the Saints 0-3 record, most notably the teams the Saints wronged while the league almost assuredly knew of a years-long bounty program and wink-winked it because it allowed the Saints storyline to happen and they could cash in with "harsh penalties" for things that financially benefited the league greatly with the Karma/Ha That Is What You Get Storyline this season.

Well, if you're right, there's been some masterful storytelling going on for the past 50+ years.

I'll need more evidence than unsupported theory to buy into the conspiracy though...

[maljanftballfan]

I hate what the replacement refs are doing to the NFL brand, but I do not think it is gong to end. Major League Baseball had a bunch of Umpires resign in protest in 1999. MLB hired new umpires and eventually the umps who retired had to renogotiate a new agreement at a disadvantage to get back into MLB. MLB didn't even bat an eye.

I personally feel that the NFL could shed viewership over this if it goes on too long, which you have to think has some at the office concerned. I hate seeing the integrity of the game tarnished in this way. However, the problem the Refs face is that while the replacement clowns are not good now, they are probably well compensated and will likely get better as time goes on. The question is twofold: Can the Replacements become as good as the old refs and how long will it take? Is that time too long to prevent shedding viewers? The NFL seems to think time and ability are on their side.

It seems like the "real" Ref's only card to play is fan dissatisfaction, but fans not watching the game is a trailing indicator, not a leading one. IMO, the refs should buckle, it might reach a point where the NFL will tell them their services are no longer needed.

You pose a good question. IMO, the learning curve for the replacements is something that can be reached / overcome before the NFL begins seeing serious drops in viewership. Yes, viewership will decline to some degree, but despite the frustration and poor calls on the field, diehard fans aren't going anywhere. They'll still flip the TV switch "ON" every Sunday (Monday and Thursday night, respectively) and watch their favorite teams go at it. It's sort of like that whole idea with a train wreck waiting to happen -- as bad as it gets, we just can't turn our eyes away. We continue to be shocked and awed over and over again each play.

[Just Me]

I'll need more evidence than unsupported theory to buy into the conspiracy though...

OH YEAH! EXPLAIN THIS!!!!!!!!!



(Secret footage the NFL is trying to keep hidden.)

[Mothman]

OH YEAH! EXPLAIN THIS!!!!!!!!!



(Secret footage the NFL is trying to keep hidden.)

[bigskyeric]

First off, i just want to say congrats to the vikes today after the best win we've had probably since the Dallas play-off game.

However, unfortunately i have lost a bit of love/respect for the sport today. We all witnessed our game - utterly shameful. But it appears several games across the league today have been affected by, let's just say questionable, officiating.

I've watched American football for as long as i can remember. I am also a huge fan of all sports. Nonetheless, today my love/passion for the NFL was severely damaged.

As a vikings fan... officiating has been questionable at best since the first game I remember watching.