makes you think, eh?
Originally Posted by: Martha Careful
What really made me think, was an early/mid-season article (maybe last year?) that suggested the NFL was having the most one possession games ever. Which I can't seem to find now.
But also the Vikings set a record for most one possession games wins last year.
There is a lot of freaking one possession games record either being on pace to break, or actually breaking.
On the other hand, we have also seen a lot of just huge blowouts this year... just seems like either it's a major blowout, or it's quite close, without much in between.
I mean, it could be random, and the NFL could actually be completely equals as the NFL has tried to do for decades... but suddenly they're being a lot more successful at it?
I don't think we can prove it's the NFL unless you can prove the Refs are doing something. Though I know Sean Peyton claims he has proof that the NFL refs called a lot more penalties against the Saints than the teams that were playing the Saints, compared to other teams.
And I think there is easy proof to say the NFL told the refs to stop calling holding calls on the OL and be more relaxed about it, but that helps offenses as a whole. But if the refs wanted to manipulate it, could suddenly start calling them on the team that's winning, which proves absolutely nothing but my point is that the NFL has made opportunities for them to do this.
Also with the NFL overall plan to seemingly make the NFL rules my generic, and less specific, meaning they can apply them differently from one year or even one week than the next, which I believe was for PR, to say, oh no the Refs didn't screw up, that's just how we interpreted the rules (this time).
But the opportunity is now there, and the results are seemingly now there.... so now would be the time to actually study it and see if it's happening, and someone might get a pretty good gambling lawsuit out of it.