Featured Image Credit: Getty Images
Topics: NFL, Travis Kelce, Super Bowl
Ryan Baldi
For much of the Kansas City Chiefs' recent run of Super Bowl success, rival fans have hatched conspiracy theories claiming the officials are on their side.
The most recent example game in the NFC Championship game two weeks ago, when the Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills 32-29 at Arrowhead Stadium to book a place in Sunday's Super Bowl in New Orleans.
On one crucial fourth-and-1 play in the final quarter of the game, Bills quarterback Josh Allen attempted a QB sneak to gain a first down.
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Many fans believe Allen made enough forward progress to earn a fresh set of downs, but the referees ruled that he was marginally short, so possession was turned over to the Chiefs.
And now, with Kansas City – led by their superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes – facing off against the Philadelphia Eagles and hoping to become the first team in NFL history to win three successive Super Bowl, fresh fuel has been thrown on the conspiracy fire.
According to former NFL senior official Dean Blandino, his own brother is convinced the sport is rigged to favour the Chiefs and Taylor Swift, who is dating Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce.
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“(He says) the league is rigged and that I can’t say anything about it,” Blandino said on SiriusXM Radio. “My brother is like, ‘They want Taylor Swift at the Super Bowl.’ 150 million people are gonna watch the Super Bowl regardless of Taylor Swift being there. Like enough, stop.”
“The Chiefs have gotten the benefit of calls, but good teams make their own breaks. You think about the Patriots. My brother, who is convinced that the league is rigged, that is convinced that I signed a (non-disclosure agreement) when I left the league office that I cannot tell anybody that it’s rigged because I was head of officiating. We grew up in the same household, by the way.
“I said, ‘Listen, there’s no conspiracy. The officials, there’s too many variables, there’s too much going on.’ To me, it’s the hardest sport — when you think about football with seven different officials, to say, ‘OK, I’m gonna rig this game,’ or the game is rigged from the league office down. The officials are just trying to get it right.”