Coincidence: All Four Teams Still Playing Had The Best Odds To Win The Superbowl Prior To The Season

[SZ James (banned)]

if there was an ounce of truth to notions of game fixes you can bet your ass someone somewhere would leak it. you can't keep something like that completely under wraps.

blaming refs is for losers and emotional children. we lost because we have awful players playing positions requiring non-awful play.

 

I doubt it was a fix in this sense. Proudiddy's other thread about the ref being from cali and obviously biased plus why he didn't call the 12 men in the huddle penalty is actually more credible.

[Proudiddy]

if there was an ounce of truth to notions of game fixes you can bet your ass someone somewhere would leak it. you can't keep something like that completely under wraps.

blaming refs is for losers and emotional children. we lost because we have awful players playing positions requiring non-awful play.

 

Ouch.  I actually just had a bit of a spat with one of my high school friends on Facebook, who happens to be a Niners fan.  He said I sounded like a sore loser.  I said he was right, I am a sore loser, especially when I feel my team wasn't given a chance to win on a level playing field.

I don't think "fixing" necessarily has to be an order from the top.  It could be as simple as a homer making calls to help his team.  There is no telling where it would come from, but there is enough circumstantial evidence to suggest it's possible other things are in play that affect the outcome of games.

 

It's happened in the NBA and it took several years before it came out, and thanks to the power and money Stern has, it was quickly swept under the rug and Donaghy was shamed as an untrustworthy dirtbag looking for financial gain.  The claims he made were legit, but he was ignored for the most part.

 

And yet, we still have crap like what just happened at UTEP.  I don't think everything is a conspiracy, but I think everything should be considered.  And in this case, I believe if enough money is in play, you can keep it quiet long enough that it doesn't matter once it is discovered - as it happened with Donaghy...  And only reason he came out with that info was because he got caught up with other illegalities, IIRC.

 

But, I'm not gonna lie...  I am an emotional child.

[PhillyB]

it's ok, I was an emotional child yesterday.

[Darth Biscuit]

I doubt it was a fix in this sense. Proudiddy's other thread about the ref being from cali and obviously biased plus why he didn't call the 12 men in the huddle penalty is actually more credible.

 

 

I've made jokes about "the fix" but I don't think there is any grand scheme to rig NLF games.  Philly is right, it'd leak out... there's too much Vegas money (and elsewhere) on the line.

 

I do think that you can make a sound objective argument though that the officiating in the first half was tilted towards the 49ers. Was it intentional, nah, I doubt it... it was just bad.  Is there a credible connection between the head ref and the game?  idk maybe... I'll let smarter people worry about that...

 

 

I've said literally all season (there's a thread about it in NFL Football Central) about the horrendous officiating NFL wide this season...  and it bit us yesterday.

 

Would we have won had the 49ers not had those calls go their way and extended drives?  Meh, in all reality probably not... but for anyone to say it has no affect on the players (morale, effort, etc) is just silly, of course it does.

 

I also don't deny that the Panthers had a horrible second half, and the officiating had really no affect on that either way,  unless it was just some mental carryover from the first half.   Hell, I didn't agree with that roughing call Cam got... and you can expect some bad calls in every game, but they should pretty well even out.