SB54 Officiating, Game-Steering Calls Favoring KC?

[Cyrus12]

My biggest problem with refs this whole season is the lack of consistency.

You either let them play or you make the same calls on both sides.

Anyone that thinks the league doesn't steer games is in denial.

Bottom line, if you don't put the score out of reach of the opposition and the refs you could get screwed.

They were consistent in this game. They let football decide the winner of the superbowl, not tic tacky flags. The 49ers lost a football game fair and square, and the fact that you are whining about refs and insinuating some nutjob conspiracy theory that refs and announcers are paid off for either team to win is why people can't stand niner fans. Whiney babies, or whiner babies I guess.

You lost a fair game on a neutral field. Man up.

Devils advocate...explain xl*.

 

[Torc]

My biggest problem with refs this whole season is the lack of consistency.

You either let them play or you make the same calls on both sides.

Anyone that thinks the league doesn't steer games is in denial.

Bottom line, if you don't put the score out of reach of the opposition and the refs you could get screwed.

They were consistent in this game. They let football decide the winner of the superbowl, not tic tacky flags. The 49ers lost a football game fair and square, and the fact that you are whining about refs and insinuating some nutjob conspiracy theory that refs and announcers are paid off for either team to win is why people can't stand niner fans. Whiney babies, or whiner babies I guess.

You lost a fair game on a neutral field. Man up.

Devils advocate...explain xl*.

Explain XL: Hasselbeck illegal block. 'Nuff said.


If someone can show me ANY NFL play other than the Hasselbeck interception where the tackling player was called for an illegal block, my conspiracy belief will take a major blow. I've simply never seen a call like that in 40 years of watching football.

 

[Popeyejones]

The OPI was the only call that didnt seem to fit that narrative. I thought it was too small to call, even if it was "letter of the law"

Yeah, there's a ton of gray area in this stuff, and the way I think about calls isn't binary (that DOES get called, or DOESN'T get called), but rather, how many times out of a 100 does that penalty get called? Once you allow for the variation that exists in the real world into your mental model then all of the BS of fandom starts to melt away.

For me, Kittle's push off is absolutely a penalty by the letter of the law, and it's a penalty that gets called maybe 60-70% of the time that it happens? How mad can you be about it then?

But the bigger issue is that fans argue all of this stuff opportunistically.

By way of example for this case, let's take all the 49ers fans who think it's BS that Kittle was called for OPI in that situation. Okay, apparently they think OPI shouldn't be called strictly. Now of all of those 9ers fans, what % of them ALSO argued that Warner correctly shouldn't have been called for DPI in the endzone against Hollister because Hollister had committed OPI so it was a good no call. 75% of them? 80% of them? 90% of them? It looks like in that case they believe that OPI should be strictly considered, even when it comes to DPI.

Once you think about it that way, the only obvious conclusion is that at minimum 75% of these people actually don't give a sh!t about OPI and it being called one way or the other: they just want their team to win. And of course they do, because they're fans, and that's what fans want. :lol:

I'm going after my fellow 9ers fans in this example (and using an example against the Seahawks not only because it was recent but also because I'm on a Seahawks board), but I'm not just kissing ass here: you better believe that I think Seahawks fans are JUST AS FULL OF SH!T on this stuff too. :lol: :2thumbs:

 

[JPatera76]

Bullshit article. Nothing was steered. Armstead or what ever his name was constantly, lined up in the neutral zone. No flags, Kittle constantly holding for his blocks. Sf got away with a bunch to..









Oh and Baalke chilling in NY with the review booth doesn’t hurt either I guess. Look. No further than the bear hug hollister got that was never reviewed.



If you want an example of steering, look no further than SBXL. So get outta here with that bs. Jimmy Carapaplo sucks. Shanny boy blew his wad early and gave up leads in two SBs. Sherm got burned, by hill constantly. And ultimately the 9ers got away from what was working, they went full PC and relied on a weaklink. (Thankfully for us, Wilson’s our stronglink)

 

[SF49r]

Who cares we lost get over it about the refs its the same damn thing every week. This is why the NFL is going downhill cant even go a week without talk about the refs. All this talk and its the same thing every week and nothing is done about it. Cant even celebrate a play because you have to wait 10 seconds to see that there is no yellow. Then you have a big play called back because 2 guys in the back that had nothing to do with the play got caught playing with each others vaginas. Cant even celebrate a win anymore because a ref didnt throw a flag at a certain point of the game that means your win is undeserving and doesnt count anymore. Can't imagine being a Rams fan if they won the superbowl, no one would talk about those clutch 2 50+ yard field goals to tie and win the game or Brees getting intercepted in OT. Instead it would be about the no call PI and the Rams would have an asterisk superbowl forever. And the worst part is the same crew that did that game last year got to ref the superbowl :34853_doh:. If you mess up that big at my job you get fired, not promoted.

 

[Ramfan128]

Who cares we lost get over it about the refs its the same damn thing every week. This is why the NFL is going downhill cant even go a week without talk about the refs. All this talk and its the same thing every week and nothing is done about it. Cant even celebrate a play because you have to wait 10 seconds to see that there is no yellow. Then you have a big play called back because 2 guys in the back that had nothing to do with the play got caught playing with each others vaginas. Cant even celebrate a win anymore because a ref didnt throw a flag at a certain point of the game that means your win is undeserving and doesnt count anymore. Can't imagine being a Rams fan if they won the superbowl, no one would talk about those clutch 2 50+ yard field goals to tie and win the game or Brees getting intercepted in OT. Instead it would be about the no call PI and the Rams would have an asterisk superbowl forever. And the worst part is the same crew that did that game last year got to ref the superbowl :34853_doh:. If you mess up that big at my job you get fired, not promoted.

I was surprised the same crew did the game.

Although I personally have never viewed that game with an asterisk and wouldn't view the Super Bowl win that way either - it's hard to beat the Patriots so I would've been happy.

Ironically, last year's Super Bowl was so much worse - Rams got called for 9 penalties, Patriots go called for 3.

Eagles/Patriots was 6-1

Falcons/Patriots was 9-4

Panthers/Broncos was 12-6

Seahawks/Patriots was 7-5

Don't feel like going back any further, but I just don't believe the Patriots are that disciplined. The 9-4, 6-1 and 9-3 are complete bull shit. And in both the Rams and Falcons cases, a critical offensive holding call was made in the 4th quarter that altered the game for the Patriots. I don't typically bring this up because most people will throw the no call at me, which is fine - but I really wish the refs would stop helping the Patriots, even if they're doing in subconsciously. They don't need the help.

 

[twisted_steel2]

If you want an example of steering, look no further than SBXL. So get outta here with that bs.

I think as Seahawk fans we have a higher bar for refs screwing up a Super Bowl.

So when we see something like this, we're like, 'That's what you're whining about?? That??'

Hard to be sympathetic to someone when they got scratched by a kitten, and we've been mauled to death by a tiger.

 

[HawkRiderFan]

Just a theory cause I know I am guilty of it, when my team has the ball I have a tendency to have my eyes focused on my QB vs when my team is on D I will watch the pass rush more. So I am more likely to pick up on holding when the opposition is committing it. Mind you when I see replays I then I can see "Yeah we got away with one".

I think certain players may get reputations and get flagged more in iffy calls.

As far as overall though, I don't believe in the conspiracy as much as plain old fashioned incompetence - Leavy's admittance that he screwed up in the Super Bowl goes along with that.

 

[Popeyejones]

Just a theory cause I know I am guilty of it, when my team has the ball I have a tendency to have my eyes focused on my QB vs when my team is on D I will watch the pass rush more. So I am more likely to pick up on holding when the opposition is committing it.

Nice observation.

Never thought about it before but me too, and I'd guess the vast majority of people also.

 

[94Smith]

No one wants a marginal call to decide a game. Not me. The officiating was the way it should be in a Super Bowl, mostly hands off. Jimmy hits Sanders on that bomb pass and we would not be complaining, but he missed. But that's his MO, he has never been great at the deep pass.

 

[HawkRiderFan]

No one wants a marginal call to decide a game. Not me. The officiating was the way it should be in a Super Bowl, mostly hands off. Jimmy hits Sanders on that bomb pass and we would not be complaining, but he missed. But that's his MO, he has never been great at the deep pass.

I saw a stat leading up to the Super Bowl that had him at the top in deep passes but i wonder how it would look if you broke it down to deep shots off play action on early downs vs more obvious passing situations like that one.

 

[Flyingsquad23]

The whole conspiracy of the NFL steering games while on the surface seems to have plenty of evidence is in my opinion unrealistic. In today’s world if the NFL was trying to manipulate games using the part time refs someone would’ve most definitely snitched and wrote a book about it by now.
With the rule book, speed of the game and players finding new and clever ways to subvert the rules it’s virtually impossible to get every call correct. The use of instant replay has both helped overturn bad calls and further the conspiracy with getting the call wrong even after review. The problem I see is that a flag could be thrown on almost every single play, and I can’t imagine anyone wants to see every penalty called. So the question the refs and the league face is when do they throw the flag not should they.
Every Hawks game I watch I scream at the missed holding calls against them and then I ask myself do I want to watch a game with 25 flags for holding.

As far as this game went I thought it was fairly balanced. The OPI was a penalty, the fact that in other games it wasn’t called makes no difference. The reality of the play to me is with the way the defender was positioned if Kittle doesn’t push off he probably gets an DPI call.

And at the end of the day like most games teams like the 9er’s had the ball and a chance to overcome the “bad call” at the end and win the game.

 

[knownone]

The problem with referees is they have no neutral oversight. They work for the NFL. So the issue with 'steering games' is dependent on how we define 'steering'. For instance, the NFL shows the referees video of what calls they need to emphasize during the week, they track their stats and performance, and they assign which referees call specific games. In such a system, simply assigning a referee who calls a higher amount of holding penalties against power blocking schemes could influence the outcome of a game.

This system seems incredibly vulnerable to fraud by design, and it's structured in such a way that you can influence outcomes with very few people being implicated or even being aware that it's fraudulent activity. Why? because you can disguise how you evaluate and assign referees in such a way that it protects the integrity and quality of the product on the field.

The question then becomes: do referees influence the outcome of games? Yes. Does the NFL choose which referees call games? Yes. Does the NFL tell the referees which penalties to watch out for in games? Yes.

Ok... so steering is a thing whether it's done knowingly or unknowingly with malicious intent or not. The only way to remove this structural bias is to remove the NFL from the equation and give referees 3rd party oversight. The NFL still determines what rules the referees enforce, but they would cease control over emphasizing and assigning referees to games.

Now, this doesn't actually solve any problems. People will still blame the referees because of their own implicit bias...

 

[johnnyfever]

My biggest problem with refs this whole season is the lack of consistency.

You either let them play or you make the same calls on both sides.

Anyone that thinks the league doesn't steer games is in denial.

Bottom line, if you don't put the score out of reach of the opposition and the refs you could get screwed.

They were consistent in this game. They let football decide the winner of the superbowl, not tic tacky flags. The 49ers lost a football game fair and square, and the fact that you are whining about refs and insinuating some nutjob conspiracy theory that refs and announcers are paid off for either team to win is why people can't stand niner fans. Whiney babies, or whiner babies I guess.

You lost a fair game on a neutral field. Man up.

Devils advocate...explain xl*.

The hawks let it be close enough for a bad call decide sixty minutes of football. I'm not in the camp that cries about it. I leave that ref whining stuff to 9er fans.

 

[Sports Hernia]

Been saying it for years, streamline the rule book and only call obvious infractions.
Also, once you do that, publicly hold the officials that screw up accountable. Let the public know how they grade out after every game. If officials consistently can’t do their job correctly, get rid of them, just like any other job.

 

[Washington49er]

Been saying it for years, streamline the rule book and only call obvious infractions.
Also, once you do that, publicly hold the officials that screw up accountable. Let the public know how they grade out after every game. If officials consistently can’t do their job correctly, get rid of them, just like any other job.

Totally agree. Damn it

 

[Uncle Si]

Been saying it for years, streamline the rule book and only call obvious infractions.
Also, once you do that, publicly hold the officials that screw up accountable. Let the public know how they grade out after every game. If officials consistently can’t do their job correctly, get rid of them, just like any other job.

Totally agree. Damn it

I agree with some concepts... but why does the public get to see how their job is being done? It's football.

Referees should be a vendor of the NFL, however, not actual employees.

 

[Washington49er]

Been saying it for years, streamline the rule book and only call obvious infractions.
Also, once you do that, publicly hold the officials that screw up accountable. Let the public know how they grade out after every game. If officials consistently can’t do their job correctly, get rid of them, just like any other job.

Totally agree. Damn it

I agree with some concepts... but why does the public get to see how their job is being done? It's football.

Referees should be a vendor of the NFL, however, not actual employees.

I've always thought refs should be fulltime, not Drs and Lawyers doing it part time on Sunday. They should be fined just like the players when they screw up. If its your only source of income you're more likely to take it seriously and do a better job.


The public knows when players are fined or screw up, refs should be the same.

I agree refs should be not only a vender but completely independent of the NFL with strict penalties for interference from NFL should they try to sway the refs or influence them in any way.

 

[Uncle Si]

Been saying it for years, streamline the rule book and only call obvious infractions.
Also, once you do that, publicly hold the officials that screw up accountable. Let the public know how they grade out after every game. If officials consistently can’t do their job correctly, get rid of them, just like any other job.

Totally agree. Damn it

I agree with some concepts... but why does the public get to see how their job is being done? It's football.

Referees should be a vendor of the NFL, however, not actual employees.

I've always thought refs should be fulltime, not Drs and Lawyers doing it part time on Sunday. They should be fined just like the players when they screw up. If its your only source of income you're more likely to take it seriously and do a better job.


The public knows when players are fined or screw up, refs should be the same.

I agree refs should be not only a vender but completely independent of the NFL with strict penalties for interference from NFL should they try to sway the refs or influence them in any way.

Yeah, I think full time would help quite a bit. I dont know of any other professional leagues that treat it like this, but I know it would atleast help the visibility issue the NFL has.

I know the refs in the English Premier (soccer) league are full time. However, they are employees of the league.

 

[johnnyfever]

Been saying it for years, streamline the rule book and only call obvious infractions.
Also, once you do that, publicly hold the officials that screw up accountable. Let the public know how they grade out after every game. If officials consistently can’t do their job correctly, get rid of them, just like any other job.

Totally agree. Damn it

YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!