And while we're on the subject...
There’s another reason for the Patriots to win them all, one that will loom larger with each passing Sunday. That one has conspiracy types beginning to look under every rock to see if the fix could possibly be in.
Some members of the Baltimore Ravens think so. Hard to fault them after a bizarre series of plays turned what looked like certain victory into defeat and left them fuming at both the calls and the attitude of the referees.
"Hard to fault them?" Hard to fault them. Really. It's hard to fault them for thinking that the fix was in, that the refs got together and decided: "Listen. The NFL wants the Pats to win. And since we are a collection of fatuous corrupt toadies who deny our own free will and responsibility, and seeing as we have no moral center or ethical compass by which we navigate, we will do anything in our power to ensure a safe passage for New England."
Really.
The Ravens' coach called the time out.
The Ravens' coach. Not the Patriots' coach. The Ravens' coach.
There is nothing about the action of the referee that could in any way, shape, or form, insinuate that there was a pro-Patriots bias. Because the Ravens' coach called the time-out, and it was granted to him. Because that's how fucking football works.
If the Ravens' coach had called a time-out and it had not been granted to him, and the Patriots had scored a touchdown, then you could jump up and down and put on tinfoil hats and yell about the NFL conspiracy to help New England all you wanted. But that did not happen. What did happen was: a Ravens' coach asked for a time-out and it was granted to him.
Point the second: the penalty call on the next play was "false start." And indeed, if you understand football and watched the play, the Patriots' guard was guilty of a false start. This play, as all adults who watch football know, nullifies the play. There is no play. It is a "no-play" type scenario. The Patriots are penalized 5 yards.
Point the third: on the second 4th-down conversion of the drive, Ben Watson was pretty obviously held. (So was Jabar Gaffney, coming across the middle.) He was held. Flags came in from two different officials. That's how obvious the holding was. He was being held, dummies.
Was this sequence of plays unusual? Yes. Was it the result of a corrupt officiating crew who were paid off with large amounts of cash in white envelopes by guys who look like The Judge from The Natural? You decide!!!!!! (No, turdfaces, it was not.)
“It’s hard to go out there and play the Patriots and the refs at the same time,” cornerback Chris McAlister said. “They put the crown on top of them. They want them to win. They won.”
Grow up, man. Seriously. On the 2-yard-short Hail Mary at the end of the game -- a play which is also somehow being used in these bouillabaisse-of-stupidity articles as evidence of nefarious doings, despite the fact that it was just, like, a football play -- Asante Samuel was literally grabbed by the shoulders and forced to the ground by a Raven receiver. A call should have been made, and was not. It's just football, people.In a playoff game against the Broncos in January of 2006, Champ Bailey picked off Tom Brady in the Denver end zone, ran it back 100 yards, and just as he crossed the goal line (and started dogging it) he was stripped from behind by Ben Watson. (This led to one of my favorite athlete quotes ever, by Bailey: "It was a great play by me.") The ball looked like it went through the end zone for a touchback, but it was ruled on the field that it went out of bounds, and the Broncos kept the ball and scored. Every thinking Patriots fan in the world bit his/her tongue about this, because we knew that without the Tuck Rule Game a few years earlier there's no Rams-Pats Super Bowl. This stuff evens out. It's sports.
Whining about conspiracies and refs who love the other guy and hate you is something you get yelled at by your dad for doing when you're in little league. Writing articles for mainstream media portals and lending credence to it -- in any way -- is so painfully, stultifyingly dumb it makes my brainpan hurt.
Labels: conspiracy theories, football, patriots, tim dahlberg
