The True Cost of Being the NFL's Fall Guy

Almost appropo we get this on the week that the third installment of Seattle being installed as the poster children for the NFL happens.

The second installment was Week 1 of this season, the sacrificial opening of the season which gave Seattle this game at home on Sunday.

The first installment, Fail Mary I, is what I want to talk about.

This previous weekend, it surfaced that the replacement official who called the touchdown that I truly believe the NFL ordered him to do to start the Legion of Boom bandwagon toward what now appears to be at least two Super Bowl titles paid dearly for the experience.

And this is on top of all the threats he received by Packers' fans and bettors (Green Bay, regardless of skill, is one of the most popular Vegas teams -- something which will definitely make Vegas a lot of money (and they've already made a ton on these playoffs) this Sunday.) after the call.

And it was the man profiled in the ESPN spot, Lance Easley, who is again the subject of discussion.

He now suffers serious depression and PTSD over the incident.

He now has to deal with suicidal thoughts, the loss of his wife after 28 years (who separated this year), severe agoraphobia, and the like.

I've seen what that does to people.  And all this for being the Fall Guy for the NFL, because the NFL wants to install this Legion of Boom bunch of fucking thugs as the new faces of the league.

There's a simple credo here -- he was not a professional referee, and yet was made to do what a professional referee is told to do:  Enforce an agenda, at all realistic cost.

Think of what that does to a person -- Easley was a bank vice-president at Bank of America.  He was a D3 and high-school referee on top of it.  You'd think he had a stable life and brain...

... until the NFL fucked it all up, and the entire weight of the power of the National Religion literally thrust upon his shoulders.

For another good example of all of this:  Scroll down to the discussion Brian Tuohy has on the Dez Bryant situation from Sunday on his 2014 NFL season page.  Look at what he personally has experienced in the last 36 hours:

• A discussion with former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason who, by every fiber of his being, appears to believe Bryant should've been credited with the catch (and, except by the letter of law, put in there for a reason such as this (and you can say that on at least two levels!), he did!!).
• Tuohy was contacted by Alex Jones for an immediate appearance on his programming literally 20 minutes after the game ended.

One of the major criteria I use for a fixed result is very simple:  The denial of reality, and the agend-ized creation of a new one.  Imagine if you are that Fall Guy.

We now know the officials are under orders from New York (Tuohy discusses the guy in New York at the NFL Officiating Command Center, one Dean Blandino (God, does that sound like a Mafia name or WHAT??)) on a very direct basis to make whatever call the league needs.

Imagine if you were THAT GUY...

Lance Easley does...

Every day of his life.