6 hours Ago By Adam Gretz, Yardbarker
The Kansas City Chiefs are tired of hearing it. Commissioner Roger Goodell is tired of hearing it. Now the head of the NFL referee's association has made it clear he is tired of hearing it.
The "it," of course, being the idea that the Chiefs are getting favorable treatment from the league's officials and that there is some sort of conspiracy set out to help them win close games. Just one day after Goodell called any conspiracy idea "ridiculous," Scott Green, the head of the NFL referee's association, issued a statement in support of the commissioner's words, via The Buffalo News : “Commissioner Goodell’s comments that it is ‘ridiculous,’ to presume that NFL officials are not doing everything possible to make the right call on every play is spot on,” Green said in a statement. “Officiating crews do not work the same team more than twice each regular season.
It is insulting and preposterous to hear conspiracy theories that somehow 17 officiating crews consisting of 138 officials are colluding to assist one team.” Reasonable people should already know that there is not some sort of grand conspiracy to lift up the Chiefs. The bigger issue, and the one that Goodell and Green are ignoring, is that there is a significant issue with the quality and consistency of officiating across the league.
For all teams. The rulebook has grown considerably in recent years, and player safety rules have added entirely new levels of gray area to calls. Plus, every single play is micro-analyzed on a frame-by-frame level, and it's easy for people to get frustrated with the way games are called.
At some point, every team is going to be aided or hurt by a bad call. The Chiefs just so happen to be one of the most prominent teams in the league. They seem to always be on national TV — so their games are getting the most attention — and they have played a lot of close football games over the past two years.
They are also extremely well-coached and have good players, so they're able to avoid some of the same mistakes lesser-quality teams make. The other factor at play here is football fans in general simply get frustrated with the good team that always wins. When the New England Patriots dynasty was at its peak, they heard the same things about officials and the team's ability to get all of the calls.
It simply comes with the territory of winning. Especially in a league where the officiating has severe inconsistency..
