MattM

Wow--this could be fun. Wonder if that's all they're looking for, or if they also suspect them of holding other worse/illegal drugs?

Eli heaved one up in the Giants game while facing backwards and being driven to the turf--no flag. Gimme a *%#*}{ng break....

For the 3rd time now--I don't buy the big market, League-wide conspiracy theory. Too hard to pull off. That said, a few points on your post: Green Bay does indeed have a national following, not as big as the two biggest you mentioned, but bigger than the avg team. I meet Packer fans everywhere I go. Combination of older guys loving the 60's teams and younger folk loving the Favre teams. From a revenue/ratings standpoint, the League would make more $ if bigger market (which also generally coincides with richer per capita incomes) teams were winning/popular. More people watching in Buffalo is nowhere near the same as more people watching in NY, DC or SF. You talk about the TV deals being fixed, but (a) do they have any ratings based variability? and (b) even if not, the League and networks are always looking to build mkt share for the next deal. The networks' wet dream matchup is a Cowboys/49ers/Giants vs Pats*/Steelers/Broncos-type matchup. A Jags/Browns/Bills vs Vikes/Lions/Cardinals type matchup would make them cry.....

Except I said I don't believe in a League-wide conspiracy against small market teams. One off cheating for gamblers or a particular team/outcome may be a different story--easier to pull off. New England* comes to mind, lots of data points point in their direction...,

Keep Whaley--other than no answer at a QB and OG, he's done pretty well in FA and the draft. Keep Shwartz at DC (if possible). Everyone else is playing for their jobs between now and season's end....

While I don't believe this myself, the obvious answer to that question is that it's more profitable to have either bigger market teams (Giants, Pats*, 9ers, Bears) or teams with national fanbases (Steelers, Packers, Cowboys) win than perennial small market loser franchises like Buffalo, Jacksonville or Cleveland. More fans to do the buying, often in richer demographic cities, combined with higher Nielsen ratings. Fairly simple answer. As I said, I don't myself buy that--too big a conspiracy required to do that effectively. If there is crooked officiating going on, it is much more likely to be done on a smaller scale--to help gamblers in particular games or to help a particular team which is paying the refs for such privilege....

I did just that about the Walt Coleman crew in this year's annual Pats* game multiple BS calls going one way thread. On an IPad here, so will only summarize. If you look at his Wikipedia page's list of controversial calls you'll see they list like 7 calls, including the Tuck Rule and the Colts-Pats* AFC CG in 2004 when the Cheats* DB's were given free reign to mug Colt receivers. Add to that the "just give it to them game" against us in 1998 that he also called (which quite oddly did not make the WP list--very odd since it was so bad that Ralph Wilson and Andre Reed were fined for comments about the replay-obviously bad, possibly to the point of crooked obviously bad, reffing), and you have 3 of 8 controversially bad calls by that crew in favor of one team, a team with a proven history of cheating, and suspicions by other League folks of worse behavior (headsets going out at Gillette, extra frequencies on their headsets, etc). The odds of that happening naturally since there are 32 teams to be in favor of are on the order of 1% if you do the math. I'm not surprised that things like this don't get media coverage since where the NFL is concerned there's really no such thing as independent media--they ALL have their hands in the cookie jar that is the NFL money making machine, either directly (like all the major networks) or indirectly, like the media outlets that generate clicks by NFL stories. Oddly, if a story like that were to be broken, I'd expect it to be TMZ or their ilk for just that reason. For ex., I'd just love to know how Matt Walsh is doing 5 plus years out. If he's living in a $2m house out in Hawaii on a $60k a year golf pro salary, that would tell me something......

They were all close enough to go either way, so it's kind of tough to get worked up to say we wuz robbed. Blame Brown and McKelvin for their fumbles and some poor coaching decisions for this loss....

This^^^^

This one made me spit up my breakfast--well done, sir!

Not following you at all here--using the numbers you used (46-23), looks like you're using aggregate records against playoff opponents during the regular season over a number of years (since 69 is multiples of the 8 times they were one and done). That doesn't make sense to me--for example, a team could be 4-12 one year that the Colts beat them in the regular season, but then 3 years later they beat the Colts in the playoffs when said team was 12-4 that year. Of course they were a tougher out that playoff season and thus you'd expect the Colts to have a worse record against playoff teams than regular season teams. On folks above on Brady's dominance over Manning, how much of that was home field advantage, as they also played twice as often at Foxboro? I thought I read this week that neither has beaten the other on the road since 2006. That's all without mentioning the Spygate asterisk that Belichick firmly planted next to all his teams' records--even more so in this case where Brady would have been a direct beneficiary of said cheating.

Have to point out again that by definition one plays better teams in the playoffs, so one would expect to lose more playoff games as a % than regular season games. Personally, anything at 60% or better in playoff games is pretty good to me, even if Manning has not hit that. Brady is money in the playoffs, but has issues (a cheating scandal that specifically benefitted his side of the ball) of his own that Manning doesn't have. On the J'ville point, some of those mid-aughts Del Rio teams were chic SB picks those years and were almost always playoff spot contenders.

So, there's no difference between the quality of regular season opponents and post-season opponents then? That's the division NOW--remember that most of the time Manning was playing in Indy either Tennessee or Jacksonville were decent teams.

While these are two of the best to ever play the position and we're lucky to get to see them head to head like this for so long, I wonder how much of Brady's success against Manning depends on home field advantage, as they seem to play the annual game in Foxboro nearly every year, both now vs Denver and previously vs the Colts. It's currently the 3rd year in a row it's been played in New England, for ex. A Pats* fan explained why to me yesterday (3 years in a row for head to heads of division winners), but that system seems asinine to me. Why not alternate those games?

What's called and when is of course important--big difference between a 5 yard procedural penalty in the 4th when the game is over vs. a key drive killer or (allower, like the block in the back that wasn't called on the TD) early in the game. At one point early on they flashed the penalties as something like 6 for the Broncos to 1 for the Pats*, IIRC yesterday, for ex.

Interesting factoid on this ref crew--it's headed by Walt Anderson, who was the ref in both the 2007 Cheats*-Ravens Monday Nighter that got some Ravens D players fined as well as last year's Pats*-Dolphins game that also featured a controversial key pro-Pats* call. Go figure.... http://blog.masslive.com/patriots/2013/10/yes_the_patriots-dolphins_game.html

Looking at this on Wikipedia, that seems correct, but how asinine that is as a general rule. It also means that the Cheats* have gotten Manning at home three years in a row with the Broncos and 5 or 6 out of the last 8 or 9 against the Colts....

Why does it feel like the regular season meetings between these two are always in Foxboro--anyone have any insight into that? They typically play each other (here and in Indy when Manning played for them) as first place teams playing first place teams in the conference, so you'd think that Manning would get Brady at home every now and then, but to my recollection at least (too lazy to google it) it always seems like they're playing at New England*.....

Sammy cost my fantasy team 7 points yesterday, so I need Alfred Morris to run for a TD and 70 yards tonight without fumbling....

A few quick observations: I disagree that other owners would discuss officiating problems publicly, particularly since bias or worse would be difficult to prove and such criticism would damage their brand and potentially lead to something that might damage it beyond repair. Behind closed doors, however, they may air such suspicions. Recall the NYT article linked way above, where a couple of members of the NFL Competition Committee did in fact anonymously call out the Pats* as the team brought before them for suspected shenanigans over and over and over again, far more than any other. Such internal airings might even lead to things like the head of officiating "retiring", who knows (no inside knowledge on that, just an example of what a potential innocuous looking outcome (to outsiders) of such an internal process might look like)? To address WEO above on his point about it "all falling apart" if the Pats* can't also buy a SB, that's just not logical--as already noted, depending on the setup in question, even a scheduler may have little control in some cases over who refs where/when, particularly in the playoffs, where it's the best graded officials who get the starts presumably through a transparent (to insiders) grading system. Oddly, if someone was on the take, their bad calls during the regular season would likely work against them in qualifying for the postseason, for ex. Finally, on Dennard, I would think that with everything going on discipline-wise in the League, the NFL might be more prone to discipline someone who's reached the end of the appeal rope in court and/or pled already just to show that they mean business. That did not happen with Mr. Dennard, as I predicted in the spring. I'm sure we have different views as to the reason for this (although I'd wager that were he a Bill, he'd have served his 2-4 games off by now).....

I'm not saying that this is happening--as noted several times above, none of us can have any idea of that. All I've been saying is that were it to be the case, it wouldn't be as far-fetched as some of you (you in particular) may think, for the reasons laid out above, and, frankly, wouldn't surprise me. That's not the same thing as saying it's happening. A few specific points in rebuttal: 1. On small groups of refs being involved and able to wreak havoc, note that Walt Coleman, for ex., has presided over 4 controversial Pats* games--two involving us (including "Just Give it to Them" and last week), plus the Tuck Rule Game and the AFCCG in 2004. About a third of his Wikipedia-listed controversial calls are calls in favor of New England--again, considering there are 32 teams, what are the odds of that happening randomly? As noted above, were something like this to happen, it could be done with the help of the ref scheduler, as well as a number (could be a small number) of refs on different crews. Depending on the setup, one may or may not have total control over when an official on the take is involved in a game, that might be how sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't. How is that so difficult to understand? Again, speaking theoretically here; 2. According to another poster above, Donaghy did name names by singling out a crooked game in the NBA finals one year and I believe that he may have also given the feds other names as well. Wouldn't that be by definition naming names? Whether that was credible or not is up to the FBI--they apparently thought not, but as noted above, if done right, a crime like this may be difficult to prove; 3. I find it most interesting that you proffered one example each of Steeler and Giant wins on what you deem controversial calls (and single calls at that) vs. the plethora that I cited involving New England, many/most of which involved multiple bad calls all going one way. One each is much more likely to be random, than multiple in favor vs. very few (if any) against. That's probably why neither team is really known as one that benefits greatly from biased officiating, unlike our current subject, nor does either franchise boast the rap sheet that New England does outside the refereeing arena noted above. Also interesting that both of the single calls you cited were line calls (uncalled holds) and interior line calls at that which, by their nature, are much more tougher to see than things like PI (which seems to be a Pats* specialty) where the players are open to all on an island in front of the refs and spectators/viewers. As I've said before, I'm not saying this is going on, but merely putting forth a scenario as to how it could be done and coming away unsurprised if it was in fact really being done, based on what my eyes see in the games and the other factors laid out above. Why are you avoiding the Dennard topic--waiting anxiously by the mailbox waiting for that suspension notice to arrive any day now? Now you're onto my real plan--taking out the Smoking Man so my Bills can finally win the Super Bowl!

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/10/20/earl-thomas-refs-need-to-stay-out-of-it-and-let-us-dominate/ Earl, just tell them you're SB champs and a great team and so should get the benefit of the doubt on all calls, right WEO? Isn't that the way it works?

This--a thousand times this^^^^^

Nice recovery guys, let's keep this up!

Nice pick, Leo--and I love the fact that he was looking for Fred to give him the ball afterwards