More than 100 million people will tune into the watch the Kansas City Chiefs play for a record third straight Super Bowl victory against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night and, either sarcastically or sincerely, 98 million will make a joke about how the NFL is in it for Kansas City when Philadelphia is inevitably penalized at some point in the game.
America is a conspiracy-loving nation, and our collective desire to see the unseen will collide with the nation's most-watched sporting event on Sunday night. "The refs are in it for the Chiefs" has been officially part of the noise around Super Bowl LIX.
So much so that, on Tuesday, NFL Referees Association executive director Scott Green released a statement rebuking the conspiracy-mongers among us.
“A lot of those theories are things that happen in social media and they get a new life,” Goodell said earlier this week. “I understand that. I think it reflects a lot of the fans’ passion and is a reminder for us on how important officiating is. I think the men and women officiating the NFL are outstanding. We have the highest possible standards. It’s a ridiculous theory for anyone who might take it seriously.
He then added, confusingly: "But at the end of the day it’s something we have to work at, how do we make our officiating better.”
Anyway, the idea that the NFL, a $20+ billion business, would jeopardize its integrity to benefit the Chiefs, of all teams, strains logic. Kansas City is America's 31st-largest television market. Most of America, by and large, is tired of these guys. If anything, it makes more sense that the NFL would organize against the Chiefs.
The Ringer's Rodger Sherman took a deep dive into penalties called for and against Kansas City and found that, based on the preponderance of evidence, the Chiefs do not benefit from a friendly whistle and there's just as much evidence to be found that NFL officials come down against the Chiefs as often as they favor the club. He concluded:
But of course, this isn’t really about logic. This is about reverse engineering a way to invalidate the league’s best team. We’re in year seven of watching Mahomes’s team be better than our favorite teams, and at a certain point, it’s easier to imagine a vast conspiracy than to admit that our teams can’t beat these guys.
Somehow, it's become easier to believe in a vast conspiracy involving dozens of league employees and hundreds of independent contractors have seamlessly worked together under the cover of darkness -- again, jeopardizing the public's trust in a $20 billion business if any of those agents come forward with evidence to an eager member of the press -- than it is to believe a team that's 107-29 over the past seven seasons with a darn near unstoppable quarterback might just be really difficult to beat.