The 2024-25 NFL Season is over, and the Philadelphia Eagles are Super Bowl champions. The Birds thwarted the Kansas City Chiefs’ efforts to win their third Super Bowl in three years, and now that a city outside Missouri has held a parade, it’s time to discuss the elephant in the room.
This s— is not rigged.
As a Steelers fan, I could not care less about the Chiefs’ success or lack thereof. But I can acknowledge the bubble I live in — one that belongs to a certain cohort of conspiracists who believe the NFL wants the Chiefs to win every game.
I know it’s hard to believe, but there once was a time when the Chiefs were the cool, young comeback kids with a high-flying offense. In the 2019-20 playoffs, the Chiefs overcame deficits of 24-0, 17-7 and 20-10 en route to their first Super Bowl victory since 1970 with a 31-20 win over the 49ers.
Did the league rig this outcome? The next season, the Chiefs were blown out in the Super Bowl 31-9 by the Tom Brady-led Buccaneers. The next season, the Bengals took down the Chiefs in the AFC Championship 27-24 in overtime, the second AFC Championship loss for Mahomes of this kind.
The Chiefs would win the following two Super Bowls and go to a third before the aforementioned loss to the Eagles prevented the “three-peat.” But dynasties in American sports occur fairly often.
The Boston Celtics won 11 NBA championships in 13 years with all-time great center Bill Russell. The Chicago Bulls won three straight NBA Championships twice, and the runs occurred only two years apart. The New York Yankees won the World Series thrice from 1998 to 2000.
Most importantly, and what’s making the “it’s rigged” commentary around the Chiefs so infuriating, the New England Patriots attended four Super Bowls from 2015 to 2019, and won three, including arguably the greatest comeback of all time against the Atlanta Falcons in 2017.
The Patriots’ clear-cut dynasty, which I’ve unfairly truncated, completely disappeared from memory once the Chiefs had similar success.
People need heroes and villains in all their entertainment. Everything is so polarized. Although many fans have no association with the Chiefs, their success causes fans to think the NFL is executing full-scale fraud.
It’s hard to entertain the insanity of the idea, but I will try. If the NFL were rigging games, how would that conversation go with the 32 owners who have financial incentives for their team to, you know, win?
I think the owner of the Buffalo Bills, whose season has ended at the hands of the Chiefs four times in the last five years, would raise his hand and ask, “Can we win this year?” The owners of the 12 teams that have never won the Super Bowl, including the Bills, are all asking that same question.
Then Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner, would shut down every Super Bowl-hungry owner and say, “Nope. Sorry, everyone, it’s the Chiefs again this year.” This scenario completely ignores that game fixing is a serious felony, and the NFL would never risk committing it on a large scale. And if they did, the word would get out.
The Chiefs finished the 2024-25 regular season 15-2. There are entire YouTube videos, Reddit threads and articles detailing every one of these wins and why the Chiefs shouldn’t have earned them.
All 15 wins gave conspiracists something to ponder.
Trailing 27-20 In Week 1, Ravens tight end Isaiah Likely caught a clutch touchdown with no time on the clock, but his toe was correctly called out of bounds, and the score didn’t count.
Trailing 25-23 with 46 seconds on fourth-and-long, the Bengals were flagged for pass interference — the obvious correct call — giving the Chiefs a first down. The Chiefs kicked a game-winning field goal moments later.
In Week 9, the Buccaneers scored a touchdown with 27 seconds on the clock but decided to kick the extra point to likely send the game to overtime rather than go for two and try to end the game. The Chiefs got the ball first in overtime and won the game.
These are a couple of examples that I find funny. In the first two situations, the referees made correct calls, and somehow the league rigged it for the Chiefs. In the third, the other team, not the league or referees, decided to kick an extra point.
I first thought the discussion of the NFL rigging games for the Chiefs was reserved for a small subsection of the internet and people who’ve lost too much to sports gambling — why didn’t they just bet on the Chiefs then? Then, it broke containment.
On the AFC Championship eve, ESPN Senior NFL Insider Adam Schefter released a tweet that said, “For all those complaining that Patrick Mahomes gets too many calls, relief soon could be on the way.”
Schefter’s story discussed Mahomes’ practice of baiting referees into calling unnecessary roughness penalties. Schefter is one of the most credible reporters in the NFL space, and he decided that 24 hours before the Chiefs and Bills faced off to fan the flames of the ridiculous theory that the league rigs the games.
Sadly, sports gambling has grown too large to ignore. It’s too easy for college and professional athletes to look down at their phones and gamble on their leagues, teams or even their performance. The NBA banned Jontay Porter for life after he was betting on himself to do poorly in games. Porter is far from the only case.
The Eagles trounced the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, and it wasn’t even close. Suddenly, I haven’t heard one word of the league rigging games for the Chiefs. After the win, a friend told me, “The game was too lopsided for the league to rig,” which gives credence to the idea all this game-fixing talk stems from people getting sick of one team winning too much.
I enjoy watching and talking about football too much for this conversation to continue. Every Monday, there was no talk about the football played on the previous day — only the refereeing. The discussion can end now that a team not named the Chiefs won the Super Bowl. I promise the league is not rigged.
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