What if?

I started writing a similar post before the NFL Divisional playoff games. Back when it seemed certain that the Patriots would be playing the Broncos and the Packers would be playing the Seahawks in the Championship games. Those were the perfect storyline scenarios; Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning and the Packers trying to enact revenge on the Seahawks 'Fail Mary' victory. Those would have been the NFL's best options for the Championship games, but I neglected to factor in the best narrative for the Super Bowl being the Harbaugh Bowl.

I have one question for you. What if?

This is purely hypothetical and just a thought I had. Just a conspiracy theory with plenty of holes.

If the NFL wants the highest ratings possible, in order to make the most money possible, why wouldn't they do everything in their power to make that happen? Paying the referees to make sure a certain team win a game would be so easy. The zebras would just need to throw a couple drive killing holding penalties to help the defense and a couple illegal contact downfield flags to help the offense. There is almost always holding and illegal contact downfield on every play, so it's not as if we'd notice blatant fixes.

Commentators and fans complain about bad calls all the time. Basically anytime your team loses, there was a couple calls the refs made, (or didn't make) that caused your team to lose. It happens in every sport nearly every time your team loses, even if it's a blowout. 'If the refs didn't kill our momentum in the first minute of the game, the other team wouldn't have scored six touchdowns.' 'Our team never stood a chance with the refs making those terrible calls.'

Of course we want to believe what we're watching is true and pure, but the athletes have already proven that to be false by taking PEDs. Why can't this be plausible also? In basketball, the refs just have to call a couple phantom fouls on a team's best player early in the game. In baseball, the home plate umpire can control everything with how he calls the strike zone. In hockey, the refs can throw a player in the penalty box. The referees can control so much that a sporting outcome being predetermined doesn't really seem all that crazy.

Holes.

Until of course you realize it's just a crazy conspiracy theory, like the US government causing 9/11, or the Sandy Hook 'hoax'. There's entirely too many people involved to keep quiet. All it would take is one person to go to TMZ or Deadspin with evidence of a league controlling the outcome of games and that sport is finished. The refs aren't being told to fix games, they're just making mistakes. It's just easy to see their mistakes with the camera angles provided in slow motion. As fans we just need to come to terms with our team sucking a fat one and hope for better next year.

The NFL didn't need the Harbaugh Bowl for people to watch the Super Bowl. There are 52 players on every team. That's 52 unique and interesting stories that would have us fans fascinated and glued to the game. I was rooting for neither team this year, for the first time in awhile but I was still sitting right in front of the TV the whole time. The NFL, or any other league, doesn't need to predetermine outcomes. There is too much risk involved.

If next year's Super Bowl us a Manning Bowl though, there's obviously a fix.

Because, what if?