By: William Burns
It is not surprising that the New England Patriots have a lot of haters in other fans of the NFL. I mean this team consistently makes the playoffs and are always good. This era, which started in 2000, is nearing 20 years long and shows no signs of slowing down. So, what do you think is going to happen? Of course, there will be conspiracy theories about them, and interesting “coincidences” that make them seem to win. Here are a few of the better ones.
What better place to start than referees? The referees have been under a lot of scrutiny lately from game-changing, and even season-changing calls or no calls. It always appears that the calls seem to go the Patriots’ way too, almost eerily so. Of course, the haters can’t blame anyone else besides the refs, but they have some good reasons too. Last year, as the Patriots beat the Jacksonville Jaguars to advance to the Super Bowl, a referee was the first person to congratulate Brady on advancing to his eighth Super Bowl. Now that’s not enough to start a theory, because Brady is a legend, and everyone respects him, but pair that with the fact that the Patriots only got one flag against them all game? Now some people start thinking.
There is also the huge Deflategate scandal that Brady was supposedly involved in. This one has better cause and actually has some facts to back it up. This scandal came around several years ago when the Patriots were playing the Indianapolis Colts in a regular season game. This game was won by the Patriots, but during the game, Brady threw two interceptions. Those balls were then checked by Colts’ officials on the sideline and were discovered to be under-inflated. That same Sunday before the game, a Patriots’ staff member took those balls into a bathroom after being checked by the officials, giving him the time and privacy to deflate some footballs.
The purpose of deflating the balls was to make them slightly smaller, thus allowing quarterback Tom Brady to get a better grip on the ball, making his passes more accurate. While there is no airtight case that Brady was involved in this incident, it makes you wonder if maybe the Patriots are cheating to win games? After all, it isn’t normal for a team to be winning as they do for so many years in a row.
Now we all know that the NFL is not rigged, but for people that are tired of seeing the Patriots keep winning, they might start seeing things. Some theorists claim that the NFL isn’t operating fairly because Vegas makes point spreads for the Patriots so close, even though the Patriots consistently beat teams by wide margins. They also say that the NFL doesn’t care about the wins and losses of teams because they are a shared revenue corporation, and all of the money goes into the same pot.
In recent times there have been several questionable events happen in the NFL that points to possible NFL “rigging” but could also just be coincidences. Some people think it is interesting that Peyton Manning got his 100th career win at Super Bowl 50 on the last game of his career. Did the NFL throw this game just to complete Manning’s legacy, or did they really earn it? Another question arose with the Seattle Seahawks’ questionable play on the one-yard line in Super Bowl 49 when they had the chance to cap off a comeback with a victory over the Patriots. This season Seattle had star running back Marshawn Lynch who had the nickname “Beast Mode” and was virtually unstoppable, especially against the Patriots’ then weak defensive line. The obvious choice was to hand the ball to Lynch and win the game, but instead, Seattle decides to throw a pass, which gets picked off and spelled the end for the Seahawks. Now Seattle could’ve just picked this play because the obvious play was to run the ball and they wanted to surprise the Patriots’ defense but upset fans will always find some sort of irrational theory about why a team did or didn’t win.
Another coincidence involves NCAA football, but this one might really be a surprising coincidence with nothing to suggest otherwise. This coincidence involves head coach Bill Belichick and Alabama Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban. Both Coaches have had amazing runs with their respective teams and will go down as legends. Both have seen so much success that all fans except their fans, hate them. Bill Belichick has five rings, and Saban has six rings. However, since Saban joined with the Crimson Tide, neither coach has won a championship in the same year. It is a far stretch to suggest that the winner of the NCAA championship affects the Super Bowl, but the Crimson Tide did lose this year in the championship. We will have to wait until after the Super Bowl to see if this trend carries on.
