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Panthers star Steve Smith flagged for unnecessary roughness during offseason
By
Rod Butsecks,
in Carolina Panthers
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Consider it from the lens that the NFL is an entertainment product, whose goal is to keep users engaged for a long as possible. Also take into account sports betting spreads for a reason managing games towards desired outcomes. Blowout results are not good for user engagement or for any of the NFL's partners. The league appears to "nudge" games, not necessarily to decide a winner, but to maximize engagement, revenue, and narrative intrigue. The primary lever the NFL uses to "nudge" games towards a desired outcome is crew assignment. A "rigged" game doesn't require a backroom bribe, it simply requires assigning a referee crew whose known statistical biases align with the league's desired outcome. By analyzing data from the 2023-2025 seasons, we can categorize specific officials into "profiles" that sophisticated bettors, and likely the league itself, use to predict game flow. When the league needs a game to be an exciting shootout, they can assign crews that historically "swallow the whistle," allowing offenses to operate without rhythm-killing flags. Conversely, if the league needs to slow down a runaway offense or keep a game close to the spread, they can assign "flag-happy" crews that disrupt game flow. Certain referees show a statistical deviation that heavily favors the home team, often attributed to being influenced by crowd noise, or perhaps a tendency to support the "house" advantage. Lastly, the league might want to introduce chaos into a matchup that looks like a guaranteed blowout on paper. The league would assign a referee with high-variance penalties. A high volume of highly varied penalties is ideal for "trap games" where referees have an outsized impact on the result. -
It's all about the money. But just like the SB in 2016, if you leave it in the ref's hands then you allowed it to happen. What is funny is that they gave this team such a cakewalk early vs this move. It's just business but lol still -
By GarthMcGrath · Posted
IF the league purposely skews games via referees and IF the league wants viewership maximized the logical plan would be to go easy on Panthers this week so we have drama in Week 18 then go easy on TB in the final game to get them in the playoffs.
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