What a lot of people don't realize is how completely and utterly fooled the better number of 108,000,000 Americans (the preliminary ratings, about a 3% drop from XLVI!) were.
You basically were led along and strung along, and I'm going to show you how that all worked.
- Second to the last play of the first quarter, Baltimore is leading 7-3 and has the ball on the San Francisco 37, second and 13. Flacco throws a pass on the far sideline to Smith, incomplete. Replays show, and the announcers confirm, several probable flags on the play. Smith is being hand-checked, illegal-contacted, probably held and/or interfered with.
At that point, I make mental note of that, in case San Francisco eventually wins the game.
- Then all Hell breaks loose!! After at least two separate incidents of post-play taunting and backtalk between the teams, with about 7:00 to go in the second quarter, Colin Kaepernick throws an interception to Ed Reed, and the entire game breaks down into about a 15-man scrum. Someone please explain to me why NO ONE was ejected on the play, especially when at least one official was seen on replays during the scrum being thrown over the pile.
- 3:12 to go in the first half, Baltimore is now up 14-3 and setting up for a medium-short field goal. Instead, and for reasons I cannot otherwise discern, they decide to fake the kick, have the kicker run to the short side of the field, where he is angled down 1 yard short of the first down.
After a three-and-out, a long pass just after the 2 minute warning makes it 21-3, where 27-3 or 31-3 were very probable. San Francisco then gets down the field and stalls for a field goal.
Viewers are tuning out the game, and even more so after the opening kickoff is returned for a touchdown in the second half, making it 28-3 and a probable 38-3.
And then, the lights go out.
It is undeniable fact that viewers were leaving the game in droves. SI reports that Nielsen noted that the power outage alone cost the game two full ratings points -- and this is death when you consider that advertisers were paying a full $4,000,000 for 30 seconds of ad time!
Keep this in mind!! Because, as people are discussing the impact of the lights, the game is delayed 35 minutes.
So what was it?
- My first thought was a reinforcing or handing-out of how the rest of the game is going to go to allow the game to turn into the biggest rout in years. 5 of the last 6 Super Bowls went to the last minute, and the 6th was basically close until a suspicious Peyton Manning pick-six with under four minutes to play turned a tying drive into the final margin.
- Or was it something other ex-NFL fans told me... That the blackout WAS the script -- a final "all-stop signal" that the game was basically out of control and the NFL had actually hit the lights to change the game materially.
==
If you're into Alex Jones, he got Brian Tuohy on his show today to talk about the power outage and why it might well have been staged (as well as the reports from Europe on the continuing exploits of Dan Tan)...
(If you can't stomach Alex' shtick and want to get to the interview, it starts about 3 minutes into the clip.)
==
When the lights came back on, San Francisco and Baltimore traded 3-and-outs.
With 7:53 to go in the third, San Francisco has the ball just on Baltimore's side of midfield, down 28-6.
By 3:14 to go in the third, San Francisco has clawed back to 28-23 with three scores in just under four minutes.
And, thanks to the Twitterverse, people were getting back in front of their televisions, their football fandom in one hand and their commercial-viewing eyes in the other.
Then...
- Second minute of the fourth quarter. Baltimore's ball on the San Francisco 1, second down. So they plunge into the line, inexplicably pass, and then TAKE THE FIELD GOAL?
Baltimore has left at least ten points on the field. 3 or 7 by the officials, 7 more by their "play-calling".
- And then you can easily ask how Kaepernick threw to Randy Moss on the two-point attempt. Nothing against Moss personally in that case -- just, more- why does Kaepernick not try to get the 2 with his feet?
Stop it as soon as you get the opening picture. Ed Reed is offside, in the neutral zone. Missed cleanly.
- Then, on the next drive, why are you throwing if you're Baltimore, 3rd-and-2 at the 20 with 4:28 to go, up just the 2 points? The incomplete pass is a time-out for a team which has already wasted one. Even Brian Tuohy figured this one out:
- Then the (no-)call that has San Francisco up in arms. 34-29 down, 1:50 to go, 4th and goal at the 5. Kaepernick to Crabtree incomplete.
We are talking he could've gone to the police and filed the charges on Smith here.
So why does this happen?
To ensure the proper result. Jim Harbaugh is about to get fined (and I could see half-a-dozen or so fines from this game), probably because The Ray Lewis Thuggin' It Up Appreciation Tour trumped even the homophobic bigotry of no fewer than THREE San Francisco 49ers leading up to the game.
Harbaugh went off, but even he probably is playing a part, or being hoodwinked.
Why? Let's review:
- First quarter: Refs take 3-7 from Baltimore for blatant missed call on Ravens drive.
- Second quarter: Refs don't thumb out several players for big fight between unsportsmanlike teams.
- Second quarter: Ravens take 3 more off the board with inexplicable fake.
- Third quarter: After the power outage and the first surge back by the Niners, Baltimore may well have left 4 more points on the field with another inexplicable call to take the field goal from the 1.
Why not? For the same reason that the refs no-called the blatant mugging in the end zone.
For $4,000,000/30 seconds, the NFL needed the game down to the last freaking play.
Had to. Again:
1) Corporate sports require manipulated results.
2) The House Always Wins.
Northern Nevada casinos made a MINT off of people thinking San Francisco was going to win the game. The game broke all legal Nevada handle records.
You got played.
America, once again, in it's ultimate blind worship to it's National Religion, got hoodwinked again!
Wow you point out something I didn't even think about. Why wasn't Baltimore running it? You are right, they basically let them stay in the game.
ReplyDeleteThe power outage is strange to think about. If that happens is there even a come back? This game could have easily been a blow out but even with that, the refs were screwing the Niners hard by not calling Reed off sides on that 2 point conversion and the terrible no call on 4th and Goal.
I'm going to agree with you and just say it was part of the Ray Lewis Thuggin' It Up Appreciation Tour. Same reason they don't eject anyone for that massive fight.
This is exactly what the NFL wanted. Lewis to go out with a championship in a CLOSE game and not a blow out, cause then people stop watching it.
I don't know why I even bother anymore. I've grown to hate this league so much, I am through with it.
And the thing is, it wasn't just one incident -- it was at least THREE. That's one of the reasons that, even after I read on Brian's Twitter that his wife was skeptical that Brian could find an angle on the game at halftime, I still posted that first post on the two plays where Baltimore had left points on the table.
DeleteThe refs _were_ screwing the Niners hard too -- which makes one wonder if the game was more like the Seattle-Pittsburgh debacle from a few years back in Detroit, which largely appeared to come from the same type of situation (Jerome Bettis then, Ray Lewis now).
And then the power outage at 28-6. The more I think about it, the more I have to agree with the hypothesis my friend came up with and Tuohy also believes -- an "all-stop signal" that the game had gotten massively out of control and that viewers were beginning to drop the game left and right.
One more thing to think about that might've been the final determinant: When the overnight ratings came out for the Super Bowl, Baltimore was the #1 city for the ratings/share for the game. No surprise, right?
San Francisco wasn't even in the top 10!!!
I was thinking about that. Thanks for the response, you and Brian keep me sane with all of this. I have had email conversations with him some months ago during the regular season, and he's great with this stuff.
DeleteYeah no surprise with the Ravens being #1 with ratings, the Niners got screwed hard in this game. You proved it. I could list so many things wrong with this game. I watched the Ravens O-line get away with holding all night long. On some of those sacks, specifically the first one on Kaepernick you can clearly see a face mask, and that was not called. The 4th and Goal will probably never be forgotten about.
I clearly feel like they sent Ray Lewis out the same way as Bettis. That was a horribly officiated game. Look at the stats too, the Niners totally out gained them on yards, I have no idea how. Even before the black out happened, the yardage was clearly in the Niners favor.
When you look at it, the entire NFC West has been robbed a championship now.
2001 Rams - screwed by the NFL in crowning the Patriots the year of 9/11. I think spygate played a huge factor, and also the Pats got away with holding Faulk the entire game. They still talk about that to this day, even recently Marshall Faulk said the Pats knew plays that they had never even ran before.
2005 Seahawks - No need to get into this one, we all know it was rigged. If the Seahawks win it, they wouldn't have gained as much money as they did with the Steelers winning it.
2008 Cardinals - Just the fact the Steelers needed 90 yards in penalties to win the game against a 9-7 Cardinals team that didn't even belong there goes to show you they were not that good. The final play of that game for the hail mary was bullshit but just that entire game, the Cardinals were getting screwed left and right by the refs. Like Seattle, you know they wouldn't have made as much money with the Cardinals winning it, that's why it's better you have a big market team win it, Pittsburgh.
2012 49ers we just witnessed it.
You/Tuohy seem to think that any play that doesn't go exactly perfectly is evidence of it being rigged (The fake field goal, a baltimore pass on 3rd and 2, the two point conversion, Bernard Pollard whiffing on a tackle, etc.)
ReplyDeleteAthletes aren't robots man, sometimes they just mess up. I played hockey in college and can definitely attest to letting in a few bad goals that I should have stopped here and there. Not because I was paid to let them in purposely, but sometimes you just get burnt. It goes for play calling too, just because a coach takes a poor gamble to really put the game out of reach (the fake) doesn't mean he's sabotaging his team. One made block and the kicker picks up the first down and I wonder how you try to spin that play then?
Maybe stop trying to prove conspiracy in every minute detail of the game and look more big picture?
I take a stronger/even more cynical view than Brian does. I do think any play has the potential of being seen as a rig/script/etc. and so forth.
DeleteSo I am open to your criticisms, John. I get that.
Here's the thing. This isn't just _one_ play -- though that 4th-down mugging of Crabtree would probably be sufficient in and of itself to cry foul.
I counted eight different incidents which, taken together, appear to indicate that there was a "guiding hand" (even if it had to pull very hard -- see the power outage) behind the events of the game to ensure a given result:
That, for $4,000,000/30 seconds, any play can be viewed with a cynical eye towards the end of ensuring the maximum number of eyeballs are there throughout the game (and it is verifiable that viewership was slipping badly as the game was getting further and further out of hand).
You notice that a lot of these aren't on the athletes. Maybe the two-point decision, though I still think the play-call should've been to take advantage of Kaepernick on that situation and have him run to the near side of the field.
But most of these fall, at minimum, on the play-calling or the complete "ineptitude" of the officiating. One of the things Tuohy and Jones point out in the interview is that the official was actually one of the middle-of-the-road graded officials, in his first Super Bowl.
The point I'm making is that, after over ten years of this cynicism and especially after seeing what the NFL does to the social landscape of this country (in individual cases and overall), I find it very hard to give this league the benefit of the doubt when that many dollars are on the line.
Corporate sports require prearranged outcomes.
John, I don't agree with everything Starcade or Brian says, but I do the majority of it. The one thing I disagree with them the most is the Peyton Manning pick in the Super Bowl a few years back, but you can't say there was nothing suspicious going on in this game.
DeleteThat 4th and Goal call, as noted, the mugging of WR Crabtree was very bad, and it's insanity that went without a call, when on a Ravens drive, the Niners DB's barely touched their WR's and the flags went flying on 3rd down to keep Baltimore moving down the field.
It's down right hilarious the NFL's response to criticism of officials is Mike Perreira coming out with his usual "They made the right call" and defending it. You know I have never seen him suck it up and say the refs were wrong. Even in 2005 with the Steelers/Seahawks game, he defended every single call. So I wasn't shocked when he came up with some piss poor excuse to defend the no call on that 4th and Goal play. This is the same guy who also defended the Calvin Johnson TD a few years back that wasn't a TD, and Super Bowl XL of all games.
Even with that said, I will say it wasn't the best coached game by Harbaugh. You have Frank Gore break a 33 yard run and then you call 3 pass plays in the redzone. Everytime they got down there, that's how they went with the play calling. They wanted to make Kaepernick the hero of that game, rather than just feeding Frank Gore when he was getting them the yards they needed.
Also like it's been pointed out, before the game even started, the ref they chose was receiving tons of criticism. Jerome Boger was one of the worst officials in the NFL this past season. Many people already had their doubts and believed the fix was in with who they chose for the ref. No it wasn't because he was black like the media said, people had a problem cause how inconsistent his calls are and you seen that the other night when they let Baltimore's offensive line get away with holding the entire game so Flacco could make all those throws without much pressure, and they let their DB's mug SF's Wide receivers. Even on the 2 point conversion as pointed out in the blog, the refs didn't even care that Ed Reed is clearly off sides, yet the entire game, the Niners got called for being off sides when their guys barely moved, this of course on 3rd down to help the Ravens out.
The fix was clearly in.