"I still can't stop whining about how much I think the Chiefs are being favored by the officiating."
"Kendrick Lamar and SZA are doing the halftime show WOW that's great!"
That first one first, one I addressed a bit in my last post. This time I want to make more clear something that not a lot of these people are realizing and recognizing and grasping as a truth about professional sports and professional football all around these days.
The Scorecasting factor is still very alive and well.
In other words, yes, the NFLers along with the officiating and any other influential forces do work to make the results they want happen on the field or the court or wherever.
You may think I am agreeing with all the "The Chiefs are being favored" bleaters, and in a sense I am. But here is the brutal truth:
They are favoring the opponents of the Chiefs, not the Chiefs.
Yes, you heard me. People assume it is the Chiefs who are being favored because they end up winning a lot of games. But the fact is the Chiefs are such a good team that not only should they be winning those games by way more than they do, but they have done so well shaping their roster and so well disciplining themselves to play so well on the field that they are, yes -- it follows...
Overcoming the NFLer influences against them.
It makes for closer games, that's for sure! But the Chiefs have always been at a disadvantage in every game they play. They're just so good they overcome it, and they have become as good as they are honestly and above-board with wise decision-making and smart calls. This is opposed to a team like baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers, who have been successful through deceitfully manipulating the advantages of their greater fan base -- yet no one ever calls them out for their exploitation and in that sense, actually "getting the calls" in their favor.
I wanted to respond to a social media post that typically whined about the Chiefs favoritism, but because it was of course one of a million of these things I didn't because I'd just be a trollee. But here is what I typed out before deleting it, just to be briefly redundant about this important idea:
To all the whiners: Agreed. The NFL does try to rig games - for all the teams who play the Chiefs. Brain-dead people can't see how phenomenally good the Chiefs are to be able to overcome that, and blind to how many calls actually go the Chiefs opponents' way. Jealousy is painful.
What's more the whole whining about Chiefs favoritism is great for the NFL to get viewers, but it doesn't help the Chiefs. That mentality is so infused into the mainstream that the officials, by virtue of the Scorecasting truths, may very well make sure they make the proper amount of very close calls go the Eagles way.
As it is the Chiefs have had to deal with so many ugly calls against them this year, but, well, they don't say anything about them because they know they are so good and so tight and so disciplined and so well-coached and so professional that they can still get the job done on the field.
Don't think the calls favor Chiefs opponents more than the Chiefs? I can only think of Dalton Schultz in the regular season's Texans game completely shoving off the Chiefs defender so he can be open at the goal line for a touchdown. It was so obvious and so blatant -- but no one said anything because, well, the Chiefs. There are dozens of other calls over the course of the season that could be mentioned that go the opponents way but, well, as usual, the Chiefs.
The main thing is the Chiefs have had to just get so freakin' good precisely because they must overcome the Scorecasting reality that afflicts them. They know they must be that much better because they know they are more against it than other teams are. The NFLers loathe having the Chiefs anywhere near the Super Bowl, but hey, they've blasted that sentiment so much into the mainstream that the Chiefs are now the villains of the pro football world, and, well, that is probably perfectly fine with the NFLers if it means more people tuning in to hate them.
But don't be mistaken about calls favoring the Chiefs when the calls are mostly favoring the Chiefs' opponents. It may be extraordinarily grudging, but give respect where it is due when they win games anyway.
I have to make mention of that second thing, the halftime show, something the NFL arranges to try to get even more people to tune in -- just so they can see some famous hip-hop or rap star.
Ahem, why does it always have to be some hip-hop or rap star? When are they going to have a fun, upbeat, dance-filled number with traditional pop or rock music that is exciting and entertaining that features fine musical talent that is not that gruesomely ugly hip-hop or rap?
Lamar's No. 1 hit from last year is "Not Like Us," and they say it some kind of diss against Drake who I guess is not fully racialist enough or something. The other day I happened to hear Lamar on the radio say something along the lines of "I just gotta be me, no matter what people think," something these people have blapped a million times before to excuse the worthlessness of their music.
"Not Like Us," by the way, is filled with F-bombs and N-bombs and B-bombs and just about every other kind of bombs that fill these insipid things. Yet no one says a thing about any of it, and these songs are extremely popular. SZA's most popular seems to be "Kill Bill" about her murdering her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. This is popular too, in a world where when people actually do that, it shows up in the news and everyone blithers "How did this happen?" for the billionth time.
Well, something of how it happens is an organization like the NFL gives these people a platform to bilge their sewage before hundreds of millions of people.
Yes, you are correct, I would not watch any of this, Super Bowl included, if my team wasn't in it. I don't watch any of the halftime show anyway, but I still want to watch my team -- one that is pretty good and I believe is pretty decent in character.
Could the Chiefs be just as responsible for being a vital part of this ugliness? Yes, they could, but as I've shared before, I confess I am conflicted. Patrick Mahomes could be the worst serial killer on the planet, I still want him to throw 100 touchdown passes a year.
Thing is, he's not, he is one of the most respectable individuals in professional sports both on and off the field, and he leads a phenomenally talented team -- our team from an area of the country that at least has a reputation for being hard-working, reliable, and upstanding. I take pride in that, much because much of my family is from there and still resides there.
I heard on the radio that well over a billion dollars will be bet on things related to this game. That is also a grave evil. But in that radio report they noted that Missouri is one of the few states that does not allow that kind of official gambling.
Good for them! At least there is that. good for my blessed state of Missouri for holding true to righteous things. Will that last? I don't know, probably not. But at least for now there is some principled position there in the state where the Chiefs play.
I mean, I recently watched a video of that first Chiefs Super Bowl win, the one against the Vikings in 1970. Know what the halftime show was? A marching band. Seriously, how about this crazy idea: Bring that kind of thing back. Those guys are actually amazing. Have one with the best marching band people doing crazy fun things to good traditional pop, rock, Motown, or yeah, even classical music.
Ahh, that they'd actually do that.
Otherwise we get this dreck this year -- at least hopefully sandwiched by a Chiefs dominating football performance.
Can't wait to see it happen!
Go Chiefs!
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The first image is simply a screenshot of a recent Colin Cowherd social media post. The screenshot of the Kendrick Lamar story was clipped from the Awful Announcing website. The image of the marching band was clipped from Halftime, a website for marching bands.
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