So there’s this thing where human beings are *terrible* at keeping secrets. If referees were being instructed by the league to impact games in specific ways there’s a 100% chance that one of the hundreds of people involved would have squawked about it by now.
What I do believe is that the gambling industry is more than capable of getting to individuals, either in a shady back room kind of way or simply by one of the refs becoming a problem gambler.
I also think refs can be motivated by dumb things like which players they like better on a personal level.
But yeah this “fixing” concept, as in the sport is like pro wrestling…absolutely not. The risk/reward for the NFL to do that makes no sense.