The pre-Super Bowl hype weeks have begun, and with them comes the annual American tradition of calling the NFL rigged. Local drunks, AM radio sports show hosts, and message board experts are all in agreement: The fix is in.
Last year, the most interesting conspiracy theory held that the Pentagon rigged the entire 2024 NFL season so the Chiefs could appear in the Super Bowl and Taylor Swift could help Democrats get re-elected in 2024. (Oops.) This year’s football truthers have a less esoteric theory for why the Chiefs are definitely going to win the Super Bowl: Follow the money. They make a compelling case, but they’re wrong.
Why “they” would fix the Super Bowl
The rough consensus among NFL conspiracy theorists is that the National Football League fixed the 2025 season in favor of the Kansas City Chiefs because it makes everyone the most money. If the Chiefs have been blown out in the playoff, the league wouldn’t have sold as many Patrick Mahomes jerseys. ABC wouldn’t be able to charge as much for the commercials that air during the game. We might not have to listen to Chiefs’ coach Andy Reid say “bundle-rooski” so often; online gambling companies would have fewer bettors; the guys who sell hot dogs outside the stadium in New Orleans would sell fewer hot dogs. You get the idea: The Chiefs doing well is good business.
Is it even possible to fix an NFL game?
It’s definitely possible to fix a football game—not like they fix professional wrestling matches, but it could happen, and happen without players, coaches, trainers, and team owners having to agree to a predetermined outcome. You could, theoretically, fix a football game with a handful of crooked referees.
NFL football teams are usually roughly evenly matched (especially when we’re talking about the Super Bowl) and games are decided by a single decisions from officials regularly. And football’s esoteric rules make it easy. Refereeing a football game requires subjective interpretation of vaguely worded text—in order for the ball to be “caught,” for instance, the receiver must “performs any act common to the game (e.g., tuck the ball away, extend it forward, take an additional step, turn upfield, or avoid or ward off an opponent),” or “maintain control of the ball long enough to do so.” So there’s room for interpretation. Officials also decide where the ball is placed after a play, whether a blocker is holding another player, how much pass interference “counts,” whether conduct is “unsportsmanlike,” and a million other judgement calls. Refs can even arbitrarily award a touchdown in some situations, so you could see how officials could hand a ball game to either team. And it’s not like it never happened before.
Evidence that the referees are helping Kansas City
Here are a few of the questionable calls in this weekend’s very close playoff game between The Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills:
Remember that definition of “catch?” This is not an example of one:
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It’s an incomplete pass. Or it’s an interception.
And speaking of the refs deciding where the ball is spotted, in the below clip, The Bills are either just over or just behind the first down line. One ref immediately says first down. The other disagrees. Decision: Chiefs. Even though a close reading shows it was, in fact, a first down. This was the second first down the Bills earned in the same set of downs, by the way. The third down call was BS too:
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It wasn’t just the final game of the playoffs, either. Throughout the season, fans have been pointing out how tackles against Patrick Mahomes are called as “roughing the passer,” despite not being particularly rough. Check out this “massive hit” in the Chief’s playoff game against the Houston Texans. (Video only available on YouTube.) Note the incredulity in the voices of the commentators and note Mahomes’ obvious flop. Here’s another flop, just because it’s funny:
This has been going on all season, too. Over the last nine Chiefs games, they have not been called for a single roughing-the-passer penalty, while opponents have been hit with that costly penalty six times.
The case against the NFL rigging football for the Chiefs
It’s hard to watch the Chiefs this season and come to any conclusion but “the fix is in.” The sheer number of tight games where the Chiefs managed to eke out a last-minute victory, often with the help of a favorable call is evidence enough—11 games in one season that were won with a one-score margin of victory? It sure looks like cheating—unless you’re a Chiefs fan.
If you’re a Chiefs fan, you’re seeing the best football team in the world, led by perhaps the best quarterback to ever play, and coached by the best coach since Vince Lombardi. The last-minute, tight victories are evidence of superior clock management: The Chiefs do just enough to win, and they do it like that on purpose. The deluge of roughing-the-passer penalties? Also strategic: Mahomes flops because it’s legal and it it works. He’s also a running quarterback, so he’s going to get hit more often than a more stationary player, and thus draw more penalties.
Putting extra importance on events that confirm our biases and ignoring the ones that don’t is human nature. Believe it or not, rabid sports fans might not be collectively checking themselves for confirmation bias as rigorously as they should be. How many roughing-the-passer calls are made against other running quarterbacks? Someone is probably keeping track, but fans aren’t too interested in a comparative analysis.
Always consider the motive
The idea that the NFL, as an organization, would have the power and clout to fix a football season (assuming they wanted to) seems farfetched enough to dismiss out of hand. NFL teams are owned by different millionaires and billionaires, who likely wield as much power as the league. They would not accept a rigged game (unless it was rigged in their team’s favor.)
As for the “storyline” argument, I’d be very surprised if the NFL believes that the people who watch football are excited to see the freaking Chiefs win another Super Bowl. I have no evidence except vibes, but if the idea is to produce a compelling narrative, the NFL needs better writers. The Chiefs winning three in a row is a lame story compared to “The always-terrible Washington Commanders, led by a rookie quarterback, manage to win the Super Bowl against all expectations,” or even “Holy crap, the Detroit Lions are good this year?”
This just leaves the refs. The 2007 cheating scandal that shook the NBA really happened and involved a referee, but it was one referee, and he only fixed the games he was picked to officiate. He wasn’t trying to engineer victory for one squad over time. A league-wide conspiracy to support the Chiefs (or any other team) would be way more complex than the NBA chiseler’s scheme, and would require many refs, linemen, the mysterious people who review contested calls, and who knows who else to agree to it. Someone would talk.
Referees are people, just like us
Referees and line judges are as prone to unconscious bias as anyone else. They make mistakes. Could it be that the officials are a little more likely to call penalties that favor the most famous player in the league? Sure, especially since he flops around like a damn soccer player. But are they doing it on purpose? Unlikely.
NFL referees work their way up to the league, probably from high school sports, and if they do make the big show, they earn about a quarter million a year, and get to sometimes see Taylor Swift in the stands. It’s the kind of job you’d want to keep. Plus, I assume most referees, like most everyone, take pride in doing their job well, and would be unlikely to risk throwing it all away for some short-term gain. As Mike Pereira, the rules analyst for Fox Sports and former head of NFL officiating, recently put it: “The fact that [officials] are looking out for any team or any individual is an absolute myth. You don’t want to get fired. You want to be right. People that say that don’t know a damn thing about officiating. Until you put the uniform on, until you have to make those quick judgments. … get off my train. Period.”
Thankfully, the Super Bowl on Feb. 9 will answer the question of NFL rigging once and for all. If the vastly superior Philadelphia Eagles lose to the overrated Chiefs, we’ll all know that the fix is in.
