Some hidden gems from a YouTube video on the 10 most rigged NFL games...

Been killing some time this morning and happened upon this video, from a verified YouTuber with over 300,000 subscribers.  The content is, obviously, endemic to this blog -- but there is at least one hidden gem and quite possibly more, so let's take a look at "Nonstop Sports" and their 10 most rigged NFL moments:

1)  Super Bowl LV.  Readers of this blog might well know that this game was rigged to ensure that Pittsburgh's Jerome Bettis (a host-city Detroit native) could ride off into the sunset with a ring.  The game is widely seen as one of the poorest officiated Super Bowls in history.

What we may not know is that, four years later, referee Bill Leavy admits at least missing two key calls in the fourth quarter to ensure the result.

2) 2018 NFC Championship Game.  Oh, we've made a meal out of this on this blog.  There was not only a flagrant PI miss in regulation, but ANOTHER on the interception in overtime to ensure the result!!

And now, in retrospect:  Robey-Coleman admits deliberate PI on the regulation play to prevent the score.

3)  Super Bowl III.  Oh, the last number of years have not been kind to the narrative of the merger between the NFL and the AFL. 

The facts are simple:  The NFL needed an AFL win in this game, after the Green Bay Packers made the first two "AFL-NFL World Championship Games" (they were not called "Super Bowl" until IV, and the first three were made so retroactively) non-competitive.  The ink was already drying on the AFL-NFL merger, but who would take such a merger seriously if it was clear that there was no real competition between the two leagues?

That's ONE angle.  A second that no one but about Dan Moldea will tell you is that Joe Namath was under NFL investigation for mob ties with respect to a restaurant he actually (co-?)owned in New York City.

The simple fact of the matter, which no one will admit, is this:  "The Guarantee" was made when mobsters, associated with Namath's restaurant, ensured Namath that the fix was in for the Jets to win Super Bowl III.  And the NFL gleefully went along with it, because it needed that victory (and that SPECIFIC victory) to sell the nation on the merger which created the NFL as you know it today.

The information Bubba Smith was telling about (that you heard in the video) is new:  That it would appear that a mob-based NFL bookie in New York conspired with the NFL Players Association (see the merger angle) to ensure the result.  One would then have to think:  This would get back to the mob, back to Namath, and he makes "The Guarantee".

4) Dez Bryant Catch.  I still get in arguments with NFL fans.

You want to know why the no-call was made?  I used to say it was because of simply of the Greg Hardy situation, but the problem with that is that Hardy wasn't even with the Cowboys at that point.  The Panthers fired him as a result.  

So what's the angle?  Well, the NFL had knowledge of at least two violent incidents with women, at least one by Bryant:  A possible in 2011 when a Black woman was dragged from one vehicle to another, the latter registered to Bryant.

The bigger problem for Bryant is that he was paying hush money to his original agent to keep that video quiet.

Then, he's arrested for abuse of his mother in 2012.

And then a third incident surfaced in February of 2015:  A video purported to be "worse than Ray Rice" surfaced, from at least September of 2014 -- the beginning of the same season which ended, for the Cowboys, with the no-call!!

And then the new angle in the video above:  The NFL completely admitted that Bryant HAD caught the ball.  FIXED GAME.  FIXED RESULT.

I have long said, much to the chagrin of Cowboys fans across Cowboy Nation that the NFL will never permit Jerry Jones to lift the trophy again until the team is cleaned up.  I stand by that position.

(And something I reported on this blog at the time:  Alex Jones actually contacted Brian Tuohy to appear on his show within 20 minutes of the end of that game.)

5) Super Bowl XXXVI.  As I said, there are three major events which basically turned me from a sports fan to a sports conspiracy theorist in 2002.  The Patriots had two of them.  This was the second.

I think I've said a lot on SB 36 -- all you need to know about the manipulation of the game was, if you can find it and the NFL hasn't scrubbed it, there were New England Patriots celebrating on the field before the clock had even run out to zero after the winning field goal.

The angle the video goes into, though, is the Spygate angle on the Rams' pre-Super Bowl practice it is believed the Patriots videotaped illegally.

That, on top of the field goal, on top of a number of pro-Patriot calls, on top of a very suspicious pattern of coaching by the Rams coaching staff -- all led to the post-9/11 Patriot being a Champion...

And the beginning of at least SEVEN rigged Super Bowl Championships for Tom Brady.

(In fact, the first of the two incidents, The Tuck Rule, was so bad that the NFL actually had to script Jon Gruden and the Raiders into the next Super Bowl as a make-up!!!)

The angle the new video adds?  Eric Dickerson AND Marshall Faulk both know the Rams were cheated that day.

6) Oh and wouldn't you know it.  The next one on the list IS The Tuck Rule Game.

I recall specifically walking in San Francisco, listening to the Raiders Network on the radio while the game was going on.  

THE MOMENT I heard the turnover was being reviewed, I knew it would be reversed -- even though it is clear to God and everybody that Tom Brady's arm was actually barred-out because of the Raider pass-rusher and he could not make the move because the rusher had his arm.

Well, you know where that all led:  The Raiders never meaningfully saw the ball again.

7) Super Bowl XLVII, The Power Outage.  I will be the first to admit that, if I didn't see a lot of this for myself, I wouldn't believe it.

But there is so much money, and so many people, involved in the Super Bowl that the NFL almost-certainly stepped in at 28-6 to try to save the ratings.  A power outage reversed the entire flow of much of the remainder of the game (getting, at one point, to 28-23), until another screwjob ensured the Ravens WOULD, in fact, still win the game.

But, unlike many games, so much money surrounds how many people watch the Super Bowl that the NFL (not unlike Oakland's fourth-quarter comeback in XXXVII) tried to grease the skids so many TV's weren't turned off and the Super Bowl parties became more social affairs than about the game.

Ray Lewis basically said that the NFL, and all of it's money, never should've permitted the lights to go out in that manner -- probably ensuring fail-safe and redundancy systems to ensure this did not take place...

Unless...

8) The Fail Mary.  

They're doing a good job on this list.

Looking back at the 12th Man's Orgasm, I can say a fix started the run of the LoB, and a second one (the pass at the goal line in the Super Bowl the next year) ended it.

The fact is that the run of the Seahawks started with this deliberate malfeasance -- malfeasance which nearly cost the referee of the game his eventual LIFE through threats by Packer Nation!!!

The fact is, there was no real call on the field.  And, if you watch the replay, you know that the Seahawk never had full possession of the ball to create a joint-possession situation.

9) Bottlegate.  There's a reason that Cleveland has never really had relevance in the NFL since this incident.

I had, for a long time, believed this was an NFL forfeit.  Factually, however, the remainder of the game, meaningless as it was, was played once the stadium was largely cleared from the riot which resulted from the botched replay system, and almost certainly a ret-con (even if the incompletion call was correct) to ensure the result against the Browns.

But it's even worse than that, as was noted by then-director of officials Mike Periera in a 2016 interview:

He claimed the referee on site had no authority to authorize a forfeited game, even in the face of a dangerous fan riot which was taking the stadium.

Roger Goodell actually wanted the referee, Terry McAulay, suspended from the NFL for ending the game.  And, on top of that, Goodell actually assaulted Periera during a heated discussion of the incident at the NFL offices!!

10)  2014 NFC Wild Card Game.

Ironically, the week before "Dez Caught It"!!  Making at least two pairs on this list from the same playoffs.

Blatant PI on Dallas down 20-17 mid 4th quarter.  Back Judge calls it.

The referee for the game, Pete Morelli, actually claims another official only saw it as "face-guarding" -- which I always thought was PI in the first place!

It would be the second and final playoff game for Calvin Johnson, who threw in the towel on the rigged NFL after nine seasons after the following year.