With a business associate who is a huge Pats fan - but, a reasonable one and a genuine student of the game. When Dallas had the ball with 2:38 left, a full compliment of time outs and needing to score a TD to win - I made the remark that, "If Dak wants the money, all he's gotta do is go win it."
My friend said, and I quote; "There's no way the league will allow that to happen. The refs will see to it that Tom gets this win. It's been going on for years up here and we all know it. It's to the point where it's almost embarrassing." Three plays later the phantom tripping call -
His next remark was .. "See, I told ya. Dallas couldn't have come in here with a Hall of Fame team and won. It's really not any fun watching them play here in Foxboro .. the outcome is a foregone conclusion."
I officiated many seasons at the NCAA level and left because pressure was applied to, "ensure we had a good, entertaining game." I'll just leave it at that. I've always felt like the pros were above that because it's all about the money with no pretense but, it seems now there are other things at play ... personal agendas, manipulating outcomes for whatever reason.
After 53 years .. I'm just about done.
Now, I don't care what you think about this post as to its validity or my friends sincerity or whatever - all I'm doing is relaying an actual conversation.