Oh... I sadly agree with you on that. "Poor Officiating" is not what's actually going on now. Calling it that though, at least keeps almost all fans attention. When you properly describe it as Fixing Games, probably half of all fans immediately label you as a conspiracy nut job and stop listening, aka... stick their heads in the sand.
I too agree that these egregious non-calls are by design. A couple of years ago I shared with everyone here that I used to referee basketball. Started out doing HS, then local college games, and then was asked to start calling Summer League NBA games. That's back when the NBA Summer League games were played here in Orlando. When you have experience calling games like I do, you have valuable insight on how difficult it would be to miss some of the calls we've been jobbed on recently. I have no doubt in my mind that it has gotten to a level of total corruption. I gave up reffing when my twins were born... it was just a hobby that I got paid a little money for. I do sometimes kick myself for not continuing once I got my foot in the NBA door... but that's water under the bridge.
Gone are the solid NFL days when the league and IBM used to run the joint commercials during games called "You Make The Call". I bet most young fans never saw these. They were designed to actually teach full understanding of the NFL rules... especially the most complicated ones. They were 2 part commercials. The first one would be shown immediately at a commercial break, and the second one would be shown as the last commercial before returning to the game. They'd show a play from start to finish in the first commercial and then ask you to "Make The Call". Several non related commercials would then follow giving you time to think about and discuss what the call should be with others you were watching with. It was perfect and everyone learned by making their best guess on the call. Then the second commercial would come on and explain what the correct call actually is with a full detailed explanation. The league really did their best to call the games by their rulebook and wanted to educate the fans thoroughly on the rules.
Now we have the league purposefully keeping the fans as much in the dark as possible. They'd rather nobody really know the rules so that nobody can see the hosing that is happening right in front of your eyes.
Here's a clip on those awesome old commercials for those too young to know...
View: https://youtu.be/0lnz1PnHGso?si=0jLkkcrtG-OY2ruL
Bottom line is... it's especially hard for me to act as though it's just shit reffing, when my gut is telling me clearly that it's being done by design. It sickens me honestly because of my over the top love for the Rams and the NFL game. It's definitely taking a real toll on my love and enjoyment for my team and the sport. It's fucking depressing. For me... the league's goal of keeping things fair between all teams and enforcing their rules exactly the same as much as possible was a HUGE reason for me becoming addicted to it. I don't like the direction the owners have decided to go with today. It's crazy too... there were bad calls back then too, but they were not common at all and the league would communicate about the mistakes with full transparency. Now, the league doesn't want the fan base to understand anything well... and that's by design.
