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This has much to do with Atlantas choke as Brady's great play. How you don't run the ball and kick the field goal late in the fourth to go up by two possessions is mind boggling
What you have proposed is what is known as an "internet conspiracy theory". I don't know what the odds of such a thing being true are, but it is extremely low. I was watching the game sort of casually as I was doing other work. I would watch the plays but ignore the chatter between plays. In overtime I apparently missed the mention that if the Patriots should score a touchdown, the game would be over. When the Patriots scored, I figured it was only logical that the Falcons would get a chance to score too. When the Patriots scored the touchdown and the celebration began, it took me a good 30 seconds to realize that the game was over. Something outside of football... a coin flip at the beginning of overtime, gave a huge advantage to the Patriots and went a long way to decide who would win the Super Bowl.
NFL overtime rules for the past several years have been that if the first team to possess in OT does anything but score a touchdown, the other team gets a possession, and that point, it's sudden death and first team to score wins - or if the first team gets a field goal on their first possession, and the other team gets a field goal on their first possession, then the first score after that wins.
Since the Patriots got a TD on the first possession, they won without Atlanta getting the ball.
I don't feel it was staged, especially given how complex the game is, plus 22 players would have to perform complex plays at the exact time to pull it off. So no NOT scripted or staged. THe better team won!
That being said, when it was 28-3, I KNEW the Patriots would win. Brady would be Superman as usual, and the Falcons would suddenly look like the Bad News Bears of football-I even bet $500 with 6 minutes to go in the 3rd, that NE would win.
I'm not one to jump on every conspiracy theory, but it's kinda telling when I knew NE would win even down 25. I hardly think I was the only one that knew they would still win. I went to a sports forum and congratulated the Patriot fans on a comeback win, and they all wanted to know what I was smoking, but I just said "Watch- Atlanta will pizz the bed, while NE will do no wrong" It says a lot when so many sports fans who have not played beyond collegiate level (like me) can predict a "comeback for the ages"
I'm not saying the NFL wanted the Pats to win, or wanted Atlanta- I doubt they cared who won, but rather were only worried about maintaining viewer interest, and a 28-3 game isn't going to do that too well, so of course a NE comeback was in order.
Add into it that if at any time during the SB telecast, viewership falls below a certain level, the NFL must partially reimburse their commercial sponsors-and we all know how much a 30 second add cost during the game, so we're talking billions of dollars at stake, so it would behoove the NFL to at the very least, make the game interesting enough to keep viewership high enough to avoid having to reimburse sponsors.
When you add all that up, it's understandable why the conspiracy theories pop out of the woodwork after this game. All the league needed to do was make it close, and it's easy enough to do. It won't nearly be as blatant as the NBA, and there's never a guarantee of the outcome-after all, the players need to make the plays while being defended by other NFL caliber players, so regardless the NFL has little control of the outcome. It's not always the calls the make on the field, but rather, the ones they don't that can swing a game.
Is that what happened last night? Did Atlanta just fold, or did NE just turn it up to a superhuman effort? Or did they have a little help? It wouldn't shock me either way, I mean Atlanta is young and inexperienced, NE lives for these games, TB is the GOAT, and Hoodie Bill Belichick a HOF coach. BUt then again, the amount of points down, coupled with how little time was left, against a defense that was doing well against them overnight, well that seemed a bit much, yes even for Brady and Belichick.
What you have proposed is what is known as an "internet conspiracy theory". I don't know what the odds of such a thing being true are, but it is extremely low. I was watching the game sort of casually as I was doing other work. I would watch the plays but ignore the chatter between plays. In overtime I apparently missed the mention that if the Patriots should score a touchdown, the game would be over. When the Patriots scored, I figured it was only logical that the Falcons would get a chance to score too. When the Patriots scored the touchdown and the celebration began, it took me a good 30 seconds to realize that the game was over. Something outside of football... a coin flip at the beginning of overtime, gave a huge advantage to the Patriots and went a long way to decide who would win the Super Bowl.
Um, no. Just no. To say that the coin flip decided the game that Atlanta had many, many, many, many chances to win -- and didn't -- is just ludicrous and does not give the Patriots their due.
(Full disclosure: yes, I'm a Patriots fan. But this kind of "reasoning" is just silly, as if poor Atlanta lost the game just because of the coin flip. Um, no, they simply blew the game. If they'd done what they SHOULD have done in the first 4 quarters, the game never would have GOTTEN to overtime. And, of course, everyone knew the overtime rules in advance -- it's not like someone suddenly changed the rules to give the Pats an edge at the last minute.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by jojo775
So you are saying it could have been staged.
Yeah, it was staged, because SOOOOOOOOOOOOO many people outside of New England wanted the Patriots to win. I mean ... seriously?
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